The Lion and the Mouse

A great Lion was sleeping in the sun at the edge of the forest, his paws stretched out, his mane ruffled by the breeze. He slept so deeply that he did not notice a small Mouse darting through the grass nearby — until she ran straight over his nose.

The Lion woke with a roar that shook the trees, and his paw came down so fast that the Mouse was caught before she could blink.

"Please, great Lion, please let me go!" she squeaked, trembling all over. "I am too small to be any sort of meal for you. And who knows? One day I might be able to repay your kindness."

The Lion looked at her — so tiny, so earnest — and despite himself he began to laugh. The idea that this mite of a creature could ever help the King of Beasts struck him as the most amusing thing he had heard in a long while. But he was not cruel, and the Mouse had spirit.

"Go on, then," he said, lifting his paw. "Be off with you."

The Mouse disappeared into the grass, and the Lion went back to sleep.

Some weeks later, hunters set a trap in the forest — a great net, cleverly hidden beneath a carpet of dry leaves. The Lion walked straight into it. He struggled mightily, but every thrash only tightened the ropes, and at last he lay still and roared his frustration to the sky.

The Mouse was in the roots of a nearby oak when she heard that roar. She knew it at once.

She found the net and set to work without hesitating, her small sharp teeth cutting through the thick fibres one by one. Gnaw, gnaw, gnaw. The ropes were tough, but she was patient and she was determined. One broke. Then another. Then a third.

The Lion pulled himself free.

He looked down at the Mouse for a long moment. Then he said, very quietly, "I laughed at you."

"I know," she replied.

"I was wrong."

"You were kind," she said. "That is what I remembered."

The Lion said nothing more. But from that evening on, whenever the Mouse crossed his path, he gave her the gentlest of nods — and she returned it.