The Tale of Hill Top Farm by Susan Wittig Albert Read Free Book Online Page A

models. She draws pictures of us and puts them into the books she writes for children. Although,” she added with a condescending sniff, “I very much doubt that you’ve read them, here in the country.”
    “Well, you’re wrong about that,” Tabitha Twitchit replied, annoyed by the hedgehog’s aristocratic manner. “ I used to sit on the back of Miss Tolliver’s chair whilst she read Miss Potter’s books out loud to the village children. The Tale of Two Bad Mice, I think, was the name of one of them .”
    “Two Bad Mice!” cried Tom Thumb excitedly, “why, that’s my book! My very own little book! My wife Hunca Munca and I are in it!” A large tear squeezed out of his right eye and trickled down his fat, furry cheek. “My wife, sadly, fell from a chandelier. She’s dead, and I am all alone.” He began to sob un-restrainedly. “Woe, oh woe.”
    “I am truly sorry, Tom.” Tabitha put out a consoling paw to the mouse. “My dear Miss Tolliver died quite unexpectedly only last week, and I am left without a family. I know just how you feel.”
    Tom Thumb ducked nervously away from the cat’s paw, consoling or not, for it had claws in it, and sharp ones, at that. His mother had admonished him from his earliest days to beware of cats, all cats, but most especially country cats, who had no breeding and could not be trusted. This one seemed well-mannered and good-natured enough, to be sure, and her sympathy appeared genuine, but one never knew what dark intentions might lurk in a cat’s heart.
    “How did Miss Tolliver die?” asked Mopsy curiously.
    “It happened as she was eating some teacakes and reading a letter,” Tabitha said with a sigh. “She seemed very sad and cried a bit, and then she clutched at her heart, and then she was dead. I sat with her all that night, until Miss Woodcock came the next morning, and then the Justice of the Peace, and the village constable.”
    Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle gave a loud gasp. “The constable?” she whispered in a hollow voice. “Was it foul play? A poisoned cake?”
    “Oh, don’t be silly, Tig,” Josey said scornfully. In an explanatory aside, she added, “Our Tiggy likes to dramatize events. She does it so that people will notice her.”
    “Rubbish!” Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle exclaimed inelegantly. “I am by nature dramatic. My book,” she added smugly, bringing the conversation back to herself, “has my name on it.” Her smile faded. “Unfortunately, it’s about a silly old washerwoman.” She raised the stiff prickles on her back until she looked like a brown clothes-brush. “I do so wish Miss Potter had drawn me as I really am. I am nothing at all like a washerwoman.” She sneezed again, and got down from her window to look for her handkerchief.
    Josey chuckled. “Tiggy would rather have been drawn as a duchess with a diamond tiara than a washerwoman with a basket of clothes to be ironed.” She came to the front of the rabbit cage and glanced curiously at the dog. “Since you’re a villager, maybe you can tell us about Hill Top Farm. That’s where we’re going to stay when we come up from London. Miss Potter has purchased the place.”
    “I don’t see how you’re going to stay there,” Rascal said in a musing tone, “unless the Jenningses move out. There are quite a few of them. The house is full to overflowing already.”
    “Oh, there you are, you old thing!” Mrs. Tig crowed triumphantly, having found her handkerchief (made of delicate pink lawn, with the initials TW embroidered in one corner) under a lettuce leaf. She blew her nose twice, hard, then got up and looked through her window at Rascal. “You mean,” she said, as the dog’s words sank in, “we have nowhere to stay?”
    “Nowhere to stay?” echoed Tom Thumb with a squeak, his whiskers twitching . “Nowhere to stay? Then we shall have to go back to the city. Hurrah! I am definitely not cut out to be a country mouse. I loathe open fields and haystacks. The possibility of owls