The Foolish City Mouse

This story is about a foolish city mouse who took more than what she could have. The moral of this story is to always just take what you need and not more. Sometimes if you are too greedy, you might get bad consequences.

Once upon a time, there was a city mouse that lived in a very big house. It was never difficult for her to find food around the house for there was always food everywhere.

One day her owners went on a long holiday and finished all the food at home before they left.

The mouse had a very bad time. She could find no food at all. She looked here and there, but there was no food, and she grew very thin.

At last the mouse found a basket, full of corn. There was a small hole in the basket, and she crept in. She could just get through the hole. Then she began to eat the corn. Being very hungry, she ate a great deal, and went on eating and eating. She had grown very fat before she felt that she had had enough.

When the mouse tried to climb out of the basket, she could not. She was too fat to pass through the hole.

“How shall I climb out?” said the mouse. “Oh, how shall I climb out?”

The mouse tried and tried but she just couldn’t get through the hole no matter how much she pushed. She was just too big.

Just then the cat came along and saw the mouse in trouble and decided to take advantage of the situation to eat the mouse.

“Do you want me to pull you out of the hole?” asked the cat.

The mouse was scared at first as she thought that the cat would eat her if she accepted his help but there was no other way out so she foolishly agreed.

She then put her feet through the hole and just when she did; the cat jumped up and ate the mouse up.

The Story of a Young Artist

This story is about a very creative young girl and what she does in her daily life. She is just like an artist, a young artist who make beautiful art and write meaningful articles in the school newsletter. Read more to find out about her.

Suzie goes to her art class Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. She always looks forward to those days when she can do creative things all afternoon. She loves making bowls and cups out of clay. Last month she learned to put pottery into a hot oven, called a kiln, to make it hard and strong. After the pottery has cooled down from the kiln, sometimes she paints it with all different colors. Bright colors are her favorites, although sometimes she likes to paint in “earth colors,” like brown and dark green.

What Suzie likes best about art is the good feeling she gets when she has finished working on a piece of art. And then when she takes it home to show her parents she feels so proud of what she has made. On Wednesdays Suzie does something else that she really enjoys. On Wednesday afternoons she writes articles for the school newspaper. When she first moved to her school, she wrote an article about how it feels to be a new student in a new school. Her second article in the newspaper was about a teacher at her school who had just finished writing a book.

Suzie asked the teacher what it feels like to be a published author. And then she shared what she found out with the rest of the school. Another time she wrote an article about why she thought the school should have two short recesses a day rather than one long recess. Lots of her friends thought that this would be a good idea too. Many teachers also agreed with Suzie’s suggestion.

Would you believe the principal of the school asked everyone in the school to come to a school assembly to have a vote about Suzie’s suggestion? The principal at this school always felt that students should help decide how the school should be run. During the vote, each person in the school had one vote. Each of the teachers had one vote. And each of the students had one vote. Together, the school decided that two short recesses would be better than one long recess. And all of it happened because Suzie wrote about her idea in the school newspaper.

On the day the newspaper comes out, the first thing Suzie does is to check where her article is in the newspaper. And each month, at the beginning of her article, are the words: By Suzanne Jefferson. On the way home from school yesterday, Suzie got thinking about how much art and writing are the same. In art class she thinks of creative things to make, and then spends a lot of time making it look just right.

And when she writes articles for the school newspaper, she thinks of creative things to say, and then spends a lot of time making it sound just right. And when she has finished writing a really good sentence, she feels almost as if she has made a beautiful piece of art. Suzie rushed home so she could write something short before dinner. She already had lots of ideas for next month’s newspaper. And she wanted to make sure that none of her creative ideas floated away before she wrote them down permanently on paper.

Barry the Bat

Barry is a little bat who is afraid of the light. Well bats are always afraid of the light and that is why they always live in dark caves and only come out at night.

Barry the bat was just three months old. (Bats live much shorter lives than human beings, so three months old in bat years is about the same as three years old for human beings.)

Sometimes when Barry was sleeping snug upside down in his cave he would wake up suddenly and get afraid of the light. Whenever he became frightened like this, he’d give out a short chirp. Mom would come flying over right away, using her sonar to avoid bumping into all the walls of the cave. “Honey, are you all right?” she asked in her lovely high-pitched voice.

“Well, I suddenly woke up, and I’m sort of afraid of the light,” replied Barry.

“Afraid of the light? You don’t need to be afraid of the light. Here, why don’t we move you over to a darker part of the cave, so that you can feel a little safer.”

“But mom, can you leave the darkness on all night,” chirped Barry. “If I need to get up to go to the bathroom, I don’t want it to be all scary and light.”

“Sure, honey, I’ll leave the darkness on all night.

That way, if you need to go to the bathroom you can find your way easily by using your sonar.” “Thanks Mom. Can you give me a hug before going to sleep?”

“Why certainly, I’ll give you a hug before going to sleep – - – so long as you immediately hang upside down and go to sleep.”

“But Mom. What if I hang upside down and still don’t fall asleep?”

“Oh, you’ll fall asleep in no time at all. Once you get all comfortable hanging upside down, you’ll just feel drowsy and fall asleep. You know, I’m feeling so tired that I could just hang upside down and fall right asleep myself. Goodnight honey- bunch.”

“Goodnight, Mom,” chirped Barry as his upside down head swayed off to sleep.

Folding Maps

Do you think you can fold a map back to its original state it was before you opened it? Many people wouldn’t have come across it but it’s actually one of the things which I find it very difficult to do. Well read on to find out how I did it!

There are some skills in life that are just impossible to master in one lifetime. For me, figuring out how to fold maps is one of those skills. I can unfold maps with a great deal of skill, poise, and grace. But ask me to fold a map and my fingers fumble furiously. Whenever I try folding a map I can never quite get the folds right. The end result is that the map always bulges in the most embarrassing way.

When no one is looking, I have tried sitting on these bulging maps to flatten out the flaws. I’ve tried putting the maps under a steaming iron. I once even tried sneaking a folded map under a bulldozer that was working on my street. But no luck. Not only am I genetically incapable of folding a map correctly, I also have no skill at covering up my mistakes.

So I’ve made it one of my lifetime goals to see if I can discover any special secrets on how to fold maps. I ask people I meet on the street, “Any tips or suggestions for folding maps?” I’ve asked reference librarians, telephone operators, government officials, visiting tourists, map selling stores, map making companies, and professional map makers.

None of them could offer me help in how to fold maps. Then the other day, at wits end, I decided to try something different. When I opened a map I happened to be casually using, I rearranged my thinking process and paid careful attention to how the map unfolded. I told my hands to move in slow motion so I wouldn’t miss a single step. I tried folding the map back the way it was supposed to be folded. Lo and behold, the map folded right up. It seemed miraculous, but my technique really did work.

My next lifetime goal is to learn how to jiggle a key to open a sticky lock. Anyone have any suggestions?

My Old Hardware Store

My old good hardware store. I can always imagine building something or repairing some old broken things whenever I visit my old hardware store. The owner is always so passionate about helping people and friendly. I can never run out of things to buy at My Old Hardware Store.

There’s an old hardware store near my house that I simply adore. You can find just about anything you need there. It looks as if the store were set up right in someone’s house. You walk in through a small door and enter into a magical land of hardware merchandise.

Crammed into this small space are several narrow aisles of hardware items. The merchandise is stacked on shelves that rise right up to the ceiling. Things that don’t fit on the shelves dangle around all over the place. The wood floor creaks as you walk on it. A musty, joyful smell of hardware greets your nostrils.

Standing behind a tiny front counter the owner of the store takes pride in helping each customer find what he or she is looking for. He takes a personal interest in what customers are doing. You get the feeling he considers this store to be his one true calling in life.

People who shop at this store tend to linger longer than they would at a modern hardware store. There are too many interesting shelves to browse through. If you use your imagination, the merchandise on those shelves can be used for a thousand different purposes.

It’s the type of store where strangers can easily strike up a conversation. If someone is having a conversation about a plumbing project and you know anything at all about plumbing, you might jump in and offer your advice. If someone is working on an electrical project, you could fondly reminisce about the times you accidentally set your house on fire when connecting incorrect wires.

It’s the type of store where human beings can just stand around talking hardware while listening to old wooden floors creak beneath their feet. I wish every neighborhood in the country could have an old hardware store as fine as this one.

My Job At the Zoo

This is a funny story about a high school student who was looking for a part time job and landed himself a job at the Zoo. Read on to find out more about his job and how he nearly almost got eaten by a lion.

In high school, I needed money. I was able to drive, had a girlfriend, and like to go out with my friends. My folks didn’t have much money and I needed to pay my own way. I had already done jobs working at restaurants and grocery stores and wanted to try something more interesting. While searching around, I stopped at the zoo.

As it turned out, the zoo director liked my style and said he had an interesting job that he felt I could handle. We walked through the back alleys and tunnels of the zoo that most people never see until we got to the gorilla cage. But, it was empty.

The director told me that their gorilla named Kong had caught a bug and was in quarantine for the next week. Kong was getting old and they were even now shopping around for a replacement since Kong just sits on a tree branch holding onto a rope all day. When the crowds started arriving on the weekend, they’d be disappointed to have no gorilla since everyone enjoys the gorilla exhibit, even a boring old gorilla.

The director said he had a gorilla suit I could wear if I would be interested in sitting on the branch for 4 hours at a time so the people would at least have something to look at. It sounded good to me, not the usual high school job, so I told him I would.

The next day I went to the zoo, put on the gorilla suit and climbed into the cage. I sat on the branch holding the rope and soon there was a crowd of children pressing their faces to the bars. It didn’t take long for me to start getting bored, so I would scratch my armpits, thump my chest, and twirl the rope. About an hour passed and I began to really get into this gorilla stuff. I would grab the rope and swing across the cage. The kids thought it was great so I started swinging higher and higher.

In the next cage there was a lion and he was becoming irritated by my antics and began to pace his cage and roar. I kept swinging and started to swing to the lion’s side of the cage and would use my feet to push off of his bars. I could really swing out far and he roared even louder. It was actually pretty fun and the kids were really enjoying the show.

All of a sudden I missed the bars, flew through, and dropped right into the lion’s cage! I landed on my back and was stunned but immediately got up and ran to the front of the cage to the crowd, screaming “Help me, help me, I’m not who you think I am!”

Just as I yelled, the lion jumped on my back and knocked me to the ground. His head was at my neck and I was sure I’d never make it to graduation. Then he whispered in my ear, “Shut up stupid, or you’ll get us both fired”.

Ballad of Johnny O’Dell

Ballad of Johnny O’Dell is a short poem about brave Johnny who was the best of the cowboys during his days. He would overcome any kinds of dangers to carry the mail through the dangerous trail.

Wild are the tales of the Pony Express

And most of them are true if I don’t miss my guess.

But wildest of all tales that they tell

Is that of fearless young Johnny O’Dell.

Johnny was little, but he was a man

Whom none could outride, outshoot or outplan.

Ride, he could ride anything that could run

And could outdo any man with a gun.

Back in those days there were men in the West

And Johnny O’Dell was as good as the best.

Only the bravest could carry the mail

Through terrible dangers that haunted the trail.

Dangers there were on the night I describe,

For Johnny encountered an Indian tribe.

Blackie, his horse, gave a new burst of speed.

No Indian pinto could equal that steed.

Bullets and arrows whizzed over his head

As into the foe and right through them he sped.

Outlaws had raided the station ahead

The horses were stolen, his partner was dead.

Onward went Johnny over the trail.

For such was the life when you carry the mail

Rivers they forded for bridges there were none

While crossing one stream he was stopped by a gun.

“Halt!” cried a man on the bank of the creek-

As together they fired by the light of the sun.

Still lay the stranger whom Johnny had met,

For all that I know he is lying there yet.

Onward went Johnny into the West,

As a spot of crimson appeared on his vest.

Together they continued their hazardous ride,

The powerful horse with the brave man astride.

Into the town of Red Gulch did they go,

As blotches of blood marked their way through the snow.

This was the end of the perilous trail

Through bullets, and arrows; through blizzards and hail.

Johnny dismounted and cried with a wail,

“Oh, Darn it all, I’ve forgotten the mail!”