Page 48 - Fall2013

A Tale of Two Mice

By R. M. Dell'Orfano

ong ago, if you had stood at the edge of this deep,
dark forest that special day and listened, you might

Lhave heard all the merriment beneath its leaves

and limbs. Twin mice were born to their proud parents
who lived in the hollow of that huge chestnut tree yonder.
You can bet that all their field mice neighbors came to

celebrate the great event with dancing and singing and

feasting on fresh chestnuts and fermented grapes, till they
were quite tipsy and tripping over one another while they
danced to old country tunes. I hear tell those baby mice

were an identical brown color except each had a splotch

of white in a different place—one over the right ear and
the other, the left.”
I conjured up this tale for my two grandnephews, who were both about
eight years old, as we visited the forest preserve on the edge of the historic
James Madison Estate in Virginia. Colorful songbirds flew back and forth
between tall, stout trees that rose over a hundred feet tall into dense foli-
age, like the pillars of a green cathedral. Bushy-tailed squirrels chased and
chirped at each other around broad tree trunks.

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