The Unusual Mice

Once, in the small town of Hospitality, there lived a clockmaker named Gonzales. Gonzales loved working with his clocks and figuring out what made them tick. He truly loved his job, but he had one little problem. Every night, when he went to sleep, mice would come out in his shop.

Gonzales had tried mice traps, getting a cat, and even staying up late trying to capture the pesky critters, but he never had any success. As he slept, the rodents would run through his shop and spread out the parts for the clocks with their tiny mouse feet, causing Gonzales a lot of extra work each day as he had to put everything back in order.

One night, determined to stop the mice from causing such havoc, Gonzales hid yet again in his shop and tried to stay awake so he could catch the pesky critters. As the main clock in his shop began to chime the hours of midnight, Gonzales watched fascinated as three mice climbed out of the clock and onto the shop’s counters. They stumbled and stammered, knocking into nearly everything as they began scurrying about the shop.

Gonzales grabbed an empty wire trashcan and threw it over the unsuspecting mice. At last, they were trapped. As Gonzales came closer to the pesky creatures, he shined his flashlight inside the trashcan. Imagine his surprise when he shined the light on the rodents only to discover all three were wearing dark glasses and carrying tiny canes. In seconds, he realized the mice were blind! Huddling close together, the three mice could not see but knew they were trapped.

Gonzales, who was a kind man, knew he would have to help the mice. He scooped up the three frightened creatures, speaking words of comfort to them the best he could, and then put them out in his shed where he knew they would be safe but no longer in his shop. He knew his wife would want proof the creatures were dead, so he took three pieces of leathery rope and cut off three strips that looked much like the tails of the three mice. The next morning, when shown the proof of the mice’s demise, the wife was ecstatic. Gonzales checked on his new friends later that day and found they had settled in nicely, and as all good fairy tales should end—everyone lived happily ever after.