THE CONFERENCE OF
THE MICE
The Brothers Grimm
Once upon a time . . .
there was a large tabby cat which, from the minute she arrived at the
farm, spread terror among the mice that lived in the cellar. Nobody dared
go outside for fear of falling into the clutches of the awful cat.
The fast-shrinking mouse
colony decided to hold a conference to seek a way of stopping themselves
from becoming extinct. Taking advantage of the cat's absence one day, mice
of all ages streamed into the conference room. And certain that they could
solve the matter, each one put forward a suggestion, but none of the ideas
were really practical.
"Let's build an
outsize trap," one mouse suggested. When this idea was turned down,
another said: "What about poisoning her?" But nobody knew of a
poison that would kill cats. One young widow, whose husband had fallen
prey to the ferocious cat, angrily proposed: "Let's cut her claws and
teeth, so she can do no more harm." But the conference did not
approve of the widow's idea.
At last, one of the mice,
wiser than the rest, scrambled to the top of the lantern that shone over
the meeting. Waving a bell, he called for silence: "We'll tie this
bell to the cat's tail, so we'll always know where she is! We'll have time
to escape, and the slow and weaker mice will hear her coming and be able
to hide!"
A round of hearty applause
met the wise mouse's words, and everyone congratulated him on his original
idea.
"...We'll tie it so
tightly that it will never come off!"
". . . She'll never
be able to sneak quietly up on us again! Why, the other day, she suddenly
loomed up right in front of me! Just imagine..."
However, the wise mouse
rang the bell again for silence "We must decide who is going to tie
the bell on the cat's tail," he said. There was not a sound in the
room except for a faint murmur: "I can't, because . . "
"Not me!"
"I'd do it willingly, but . . ." "Neither can I . . ."
"Not me!" "Not me!"
Nobody was brave enough to
come forward to put the plan into action, and the conference of the mice
ended without any decision being made. It's often very easy to have bright
ideas, but putting them into practice is a more difficult matter...
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