One summer day, on a fine day, a house mouse crawled out of its hole and ran to Sildruva to its relatives - the field mouse.
- Well, hello! Do you still recognize your relatives?
- Hello, hello! How can I not recognize my sister? How glad I am that you visited me! Did you even know the way and didn’t you get lost?
- Why bother there?! Tell me better, sister, what is this heap, all covered in stubble?
“Yes, this grain has sprouted, my only food,” the field mouse answers sadly.
The house mouse just clasped its paws:
- Oh my God! Yes, I would die of hunger on such bread. Oh, sister, my food is completely different: meat for breakfast, lard for lunch, sour cream for dinner. And I get all this in the kitchen, as soon as I jump out of the hole. Can my life be compared to yours? Come to me, we will live together.
- I’ll come, sister, I’ll come!
And then at night the sisters crawled out from under the floor and asked the cricket:
- Cricket, and cricket, is the cat at home?
- He’s not there, he went to Riga to sell mouse skins! - answers the cricket.
“So we can go,” the house mouse was happy. “You, sister, stay near the hole, I’ll carry the food here, and you take it to the hole.”
But as soon as the house mouse took a step, the cat jumped! - right at her. It’s good that she managed to sneak into the hole, otherwise it would have been bad for her.
“It’s no problem,” the house mouse reassures the field mouse, “it didn’t work out here, okay, let’s go through the main hole to the barn for lard.”
They went to the barn, and then again there was trouble: the owner opened the door, and his little dog rushed at the sisters. When the field mouse saw all this, she immediately went home and said:
- It’s better to gnaw on sprouted grain and not know fear than to eat like a lord and tremble for your skin. I collect my own grain, and you’re just looking at how to profit from someone else’s goods. Goodbye!
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru