The Mouse Who Mended the Quilt
At the edge of the Long Meadow there was a long low barn. When the first frost came, all the animals in the barn slept together under one great quilt.
The quilt was made of squares, one for each animal. Old Bear’s square was as big as a door. Goose’s square was white. Hare’s square was brown and fluffy. And Tilly’s square was no bigger than a stamp on a letter.
Tilly was a harvest mouse, the smallest animal in the barn. Her square was sewn into the very corner, where it was always getting folded under.
“Sit at the edge, Tilly,” everybody said. “Then you won’t get squashed.”
So Tilly sat at the edge. She did not mind very much, because she was busy. Tilly could do almost anything with her tail. She could curl it round a straw and swing. She could wrap it round a seed and carry it home. Once she carried a whole blackberry that way, and came home purple from her nose to her toes.
One afternoon Goose stood in the barn door and sniffed the air.
“HONK!” said Goose. “Frost tonight! Fetch the quilt! Shake it out! Tuck your ears in! HONK!”
Goose was always giving everybody advice, very loudly. Nobody tucked their ears in.
Old Bear and Hare pulled the quilt down from the hayloft. They spread it out on the straw. And there, right in the middle, was a hole.
It was round, and puffy at the top. It was exactly the shape of a currant bun.
“Oh dear,” said Goose, quite quietly for a goose. “That was me. Last winter there was a currant bun on the other side of the quilt. I reached for it. I pecked a bit too far.”
Everybody looked at the hole. It was right in the middle, where the quilt was warmest. Tonight the cold would blow straight up through it, and nobody would get a wink of sleep.
Tilly looked at the hole too.
“We have to mend it before the frost,” she said. “Then we can all be warm together.”
“Then we will,” said Old Bear.
Old Bear did everything slowly. He reached up, slowly, to his old brown hat. In the hat-band was a cork from a jam jar. In the cork was the only needle in the whole barn.
He pulled out the needle. He found a reel of red thread. He licked the end of the thread, held up the needle, and squinted.
His paw was so big that the needle vanished inside it.
Plink. The needle fell into the straw.
Tilly found it with her tail and gave it back.
Plink. Tilly found it again.
Plink. Tilly found it a third time.
“Too big,” said Old Bear, and he looked sadly at his paws.
He stuck the needle back in the cork and held it up very still. “Goose?” he said.
Goose glared at the thread. “In you go!” said Goose. “Straight through! HONK!”
The thread did not go anywhere. So Goose tried to poke it through. But Goose’s beak was much too wide for the tiny eye of the needle.
“Too wide,” said Goose.
“My turn,” said Hare.
Hare held the thread. But Hare’s paws twitched. His nose twitched. His whiskers twitched. Twitch, twitch, twitch went the thread, round and round, until it was wound all round his long ears.
“Too twitchy,” said Hare, from inside a tangle of red.
It took everybody to unwind him. Outside, the sky was turning pink.
“May I try?” said Tilly.
“You?” said Goose. “Mind you don’t get squashed!”
Old Bear set the cork down on the straw. The needle stood up out of it like a tall silver pole, with its eye at the very top. Tilly ran up the cork and stood on her tiptoes.
To Old Bear, the eye of the needle was a tiny slit. To Tilly, it was just the size of a door.
She took the end of the red thread in her front paws. She walked it straight through the eye, in one side and out the other, the way a mouse walks through her own front door. Then she wrapped her tail round the end and tied a neat little knot.
“Just right,” said Tilly.
Old Bear sat down and held the quilt up across his big knees. Underneath it was like a tent. Tilly ran inside. Goose and Hare waited on top.
Tilly pushed the needle up through the quilt. Poke.
“Pull!” said Goose, and tugged it up.
Hare drew the long red thread after it. Zzzip. Then he poked the needle back down to Tilly.
“Push!” said Goose.
Push, pull. Poke, zzzip. Goose said “PUSH!” and “PULL!” as loudly as anything, because Goose did everything loudly. But for once it was exactly the right advice.
Stitch by stitch, the hole got smaller. First it was the size of a currant bun. Then it was the size of a biscuit. Then a button. Then a currant. Then it was not there at all.
Old Bear stuck the needle back in the cork, and the cork back in his hat-band. Outside, the first frost came down on the Long Meadow and made all the grass white.
Everyone climbed under the quilt. Tilly went to the edge, the way she always did.
“Not tonight,” said Old Bear.
He lifted the middle of the quilt with one big paw, and Tilly tucked herself in, right under her own red stitches. Then Old Bear reached over to the corner and smoothed her little square flat, so that for once it was not folded under.
“Big paws hold the quilt,” said Old Bear. “Small paws mend it.”
Old Bear lay down on one side of her. Hare lay down on the other, and his twitching got slower, and slower, and stopped. Goose settled at the bottom, beak under wing.
Tilly was warm on the left and warm on the right. She was warm on top and warm underneath.
“Is it too squashy, Tilly?” said Goose, in the smallest honk there ever was.
“Just right,” said Tilly.
And the smallest animal in the barn fell asleep in the very best place, warm all the way round.