The Mouse and the Mousetrap

A farmer and his wife lived in a comfortable farmhouse with a chicken, a pig, and a cow in the yard. They all lived well, in their way — the chicken laid eggs, the pig grew fat, the cow gave milk, and the little mouse survived on crumbs that fell from the kitchen table. It was a peaceful life, until one evening the mouse was scurrying along the wall when he overheard the farmer tell his wife, "I bought a mousetrap today. That should take care of our mouse problem." The mouse froze. His whiskers trembled, and his little heart pounded so hard he was sure the whole house could hear it. He had to warn the others — surely they would help him, for were they not all neighbors?

The Warnings

The mouse ran to the chicken and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house! We must do something!" The chicken clucked calmly and went back to pecking the ground. "I am sorry, little mouse," she said, "but a mousetrap is no concern of mine. It is far too small for me." The mouse ran to the pig. "A mousetrap has been set! Please help me!" The pig snorted from his mud. "There is nothing I can do about a mousetrap. My prayers are with you." The mouse ran to the cow. "Please, a mousetrap — it will kill me!" The cow looked down kindly. "A mousetrap is so small, little one. I am in no danger at all." The mouse returned to his hole, sad and alone. No one would help him — not the chicken, not the pig, not the cow. He lay awake all night, listening to every sound in the dark house, and just before dawn he heard it: the sharp, terrible snap of the mousetrap.

The Trap Strikes

But it was not the mouse who was caught. A snake had crawled in after the cheese, and the trap had snapped on its tail. When the farmer's wife came in the dark to check, the wounded snake bit her. She grew terribly ill with fever. "She needs chicken soup," the doctor said, and the farmer killed the chicken to make it. When neighbors came to sit with the sick wife, the farmer slaughtered the pig to feed them all. But the wife did not recover, and when she died, the farmer sold the cow to pay for the funeral. The mouse watched all of this from his hole, and he remembered the day the trap arrived — the day the chicken, the pig, and the cow had each said it was not their problem. The trap had been set for one small mouse, but it had taken them all.

Moral of the Story

When one of us is in danger, we are all in danger. The trouble that seems too small to concern you today may be the very trouble that reaches your door tomorrow. A community that ignores its smallest member's pain will one day share it.