Johnny Mouse and The Wishing Stick

Johnny Mouse scolds the Woozgoozle for eating baby chics.

        Johnny Mouse was a cute, little tiny mouse. He lived with Gran’ma and Gran’pa Mouse in a little cigar-box house. In the little cigar-box house there was a tiny little kitchen where Gran’ma Mouse cooked nice things for Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse. Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse also ate in the kitchen at a tiny table, for the little cigar-box house did not have a dining-room. 

        Then there was a bedroom and a living-room in the tiny cigar-box house. The bedroom was where Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse slept at night. There were three little soft white beds which Gran’pa Mouse had made out of pasteboard boxes. One for Gran-ma, one for Gran’pa and one for Johnny Mouse.

        The living room was the largest room in the little cigar-box house, but that was quite small. Here of evenings Gran’ma sat and knitted while Gran’pa read the news and smoked his little pipe, or here they sat and visited with their friends. The little living-room contained two or three little rocking chairs, a couch, a center table with tiny lamp upon it, and a lovely organ. No one played upon the organ tor it was only a picture which Gran’ma had clipped from a large magazine and pasted upon the wall. 

        But from across the little Mouse living-room it looked like a real organ, for it was beautifully colored. All around the little cigar-box house was a tiny picket fence to keep the mischievous bug boys out of Gran’pa Mouse’s garden. 

        The fence was made out of burnt matches which Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse had gathered and carried there in a little pasteboard wheelbarrow. There was also a tiny well back of the house, near the kitchen door and the bucket was made from an acorn.

Johnny Mouse pulled out two of Gran'ma's lovely sugared
doughnuts. "There!" he said, "eat those."

        Gran’pa and Johnny were working in the garden, and every once in a while Gran'pa and Johnny Mouse wiggled their pink noses and looked toward the kitchen. 

        “Did Gran’ma call us?" Johnny Mouse finally asked. 

        “I believe she did!’ Gran’pa Mouse laughed, as he wiggled his nose. 

        “No, I did not call you!” Gran’ma said, when Johnny and Gran’pa Mouse looked in the kitchen door. She knew they had scented the lovely doughnuts she was cooking. 

        “Have you finished weeding the garden?” Gran’ma asked. 

        “It is all finished!” said Gran’pa Mouse. 

        “Then let’s have a picnic!” Gran’ma said, as she took the last of the doughnuts out of the kettle and rolled them in sugar. 

        Gran’pa drew an acorn bucket full of water from the little well and he and Johnny Mouse washed their faces and hands. Gran’ma Mouse packed a little basket full of doughnuts and other things and put on her pretty little bonnet. Johnny carried the little basket and ran ahead down the path through the woods. 

        Soon Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse came to Chicky Town and there they found all the Chickies crying. 

        “Dear me! Why do you cry?” Gran’ma and Gran'pa and Johnny Mouse asked them.

        “We are crying because this is the day the Woozgoozle is to come and eat some of us!” said a large Rooster Chicky. “The Woozgoozle comes once a week, carries.two or three of us to his cave and eats us!” 

        “But he has no right to do that!” said Gran’ma, as she stamped her little foot. 

        “Here he comes now!” cried all the Chickies, as they began running this way and that and hurrying into their houses. 

        Down the path Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse could hear the Woozgoozle coming. “Kerlumpity, kerlumpity!’ And presently he came to the first Chicky house. There he found two fat Chickies, and putting them into a sack he turned back up the road. 

        When the Woozgoozle left, all the Chickies came out of their houses and squawked and cackled until ‘Gran’ ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse had to hold their hands over their ears. 

        Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse sadly left Chicky Town and went down the road in the very same direction the Woozgoozle had taken. 

        Johnny Mouse ran ahead, and soon beside the path, lying upon a stone, fast asleep, he saw the Woozgoozle. Johnny waited quietly until Gran’ma and Gran’pa Mouse came up to him. “He has eaten the Chickies!’ Johnny said. Sure enough feathers were scattered all about. 

        Johnny Mouse climbed upon the stone and bit the Wooz- goozle upon his heel. 

        “Wow! the Woozgoozle cried as he sat up and rubbed his eves. “A bee must have stung me!’ Then seeing Johnny Mouse standing there he asked, “Did you do that?”

        “Yes!” said Johnny Mouse. “You should be ashamed, eating the Chickies! What if some one should eat up your mother or your father or someone whom you loved? That wouldn't be very nice, would it?”

        The Woozgoozle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I hadn't thought of that! All I thought of was how hungry | was. I'm so hungry now I'll have to get some more Chickies !"

       "Gran’ma and Gran'pa Mouse then climbed upon the rock beside Johnny. “No, you won't!” said Gran’pa Mouse. “It is wrong for you to take the Chickies away from one another.” 

        “But I must eat something!” sighed the Woozgoozle. 

        Johnny House reached into his basket and pulled out two of Gran'ma’s lovely sugared doughnuts. “There!” he said, ‘eat those."

        “My! Aren't they good?” cried the Woozgoozle. ‘They are ever so much better than Chickies! Yum, yum!" 

        “Give him some more, Johnny!” said Gran’pa Mouse. 

        So the Woozgoozle was given all of the picnic lunch to eat: sixteen doughnuts, nine cream puffs and a lemon pie.

        “Tell me where you find these things to eat and I'll promise never to eat another Chicky!” said the Woozgoozle. 

        “Gran’ma makes them!” said Johnny Mouse. 

        “Isn't that strange? I never knew any one could make anything to eat. I thought one had to catch things!” 

        “Wait until you taste ice-cream!” said Johnny Mouse. “And candy! Gran’ma makes everything like that, and they are better to eat than doughnuts and pie!"

        “If that is true, I am, indeed, sorry that I ever ate any of the Chickies,” said the Woozgoozle. ‘After this IT will never bother them again!"

        “You must come home with us,” Gran’ma Mouse said, “and I will teach you how to make doughnuts and other nice things to eat.”

        This pleased the Woozgoozle very much.

        Now, Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse were very hungry by this time, so they decided they would return home. 

        When they came to Chicky Town all the Chickies began cackling when they saw the Woozgoozle, but Gran’ma and Gran’pa and Johnny Mouse told them the Woozgoozle had promised never to eat any of them again and so the Chickies were very happy. 

        Gran’ma and Gran‘pa and Johnny Mouse and the Woozgoozle finally reached the little cigar-box house and Gran’ma got supper while Gran'pa set the table and Johnny Mouse and the Woozgoozle washed their faces and hands and brushed their hair. 

        Then they sat down at the table. It was hard to get the Woozgoozle to eat anything except doughnuts and pie and cream puffs, for he liked them very much and did not know (like a good many children) that too many sweets are apt to give one a stomach-ache. 

        Then, when supper was over, and the dishes washed and wiped, Johnny showed the Woozgoozle his scrapbook with pretty pictures in it, until time for bed. 

        “Well!” said Gran’pa, as he took off his shoes and put on his house slippers, “it turned out a delightful picnic after all.” 

        And Gran’ma Mouse, thinking of the kindness they had done for Chicky Town, sighed contentedly, and replied: 

        “Yes, indeed, Gran’pa, and I feel that the Woozgoozle from now on will be a very kindly creature!’ And so he proved to be as you shall soon learn. story and pictures by Johnny Gruelle

The Woozgoozle in our story above is a pint sized "least weasel." 

by Wildlife Wednesday segment here describes his true 

nature and habitat.