Cildern's Story; Henry and Sam.

Henry the cat sat underneath the table watching the hole in the skirting board. He licked his lips at the thought of a nice tasty mouse dinner!
However, Sam the mouse was not that silly. He sat looking out of the hole wondering how he was going to escape. Then he had an idea. From his bed he pulled out a long stalk of corn. Then he dangled one of his red tee-shirts on the end of it.
Carefully he moved the stalk towards the cat hoping that it would distract him. You bet it did! Henry was a bit short sighted so he thought that Sam was running underneath the chair. He bounded forwards and in his hurry lost his balance and went sliding into the wall where he lay seeing stars.
"Ha! Ha! You can't catch me," Sam taunted. Underneath the door he went into the kitchen to see if the mistress of the house had left him some cheese. Yes, there it was as usual broken up into tiny pieces. You see, Sam was not very old and did not have all his teeth. There he sat munching happily, that was until he saw Henry the cat gazing up at him, showing his fearsome white teeth. How was he going to get down from the table?
Being a clever little mouse he sometimes had some good ideas. A jug of milk had been left standing on the table. The thing was, could he move it? He had to do something quickly because Henry was getting ready to jump up and catch him. With all his strength; which wasn't much as you remember he is not full grown, inch by inch he moved the jug towards the edge of the table. It seemed to take forever. Hurry up! Hurry up! He kept telling himself. How will I ever get out of that cat's belly if he swallows me?
At last he was ready. Just as Henry was about to spring upwards he emptied the milk all over the floor. Henry had this thing about his stomach, it always wanted filling. He saw the milk which diverted his attention, which did not take much thought as he had very few of those in his head. His luck was in, the spilled milk was topped with cream, so he licked away to his hearts content.
Meanwhile, Sam the mouse slid down the table leg, crept up behind Henry and bit his tail! Henry jumped so high that he hit his head on the ceiling and fell down into the pool of milk.
Just then his mistress came into the kitchen. "Up to your old tricks again Henry, now I have no milk for my tea in the morning. Obviously you need teaching a lesson."
Poor Henry found himself out in the garden in the pouring rain, and he did not even have an anorak! He felt very angry because none of it had been his fault. At least that was how he looked at it.
Meanwhile Sam had gone home to tell his grandfather all about it. Grandfather said, "In my day we were much fitter and faster on our feet that this modern generation."
"But Granddad,  you forget my legs are still small," Sam protested.
"In that case I will have to make you something in my workshop which will do the trick. Now off to bed and get some sleep otherwise you will never grow big and strong."
Eventually Henry was let back into the house, dripping wet all over the place. The next day he began to sneeze and felt so ill he could not bother himself about that mouse, he was bound to catch him next time.
Meantime, Grandfather is busy in his workshop, I wonder what he can be making?

Written by Augustine Nash.