Walter the Lazy Mouse (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

  Text and illustrations copyright © 1937 Marjorie Flack

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Two Lions, New York

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Two Lions are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477827345

  ISBN-10: 147782734X

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014918236

  Book design by Regina Flath

  Contents

  Start Reading

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  I’ve loved Marjorie Flack’s Walter the Lazy Mouse ever since I was a child. It was one of the very first books that I read all by myself. First published in 1937, it’s one of those children’s books that simply doesn’t get outdated, no matter its age. I shared it with my children (who have shared it, in turn, with their own children) and with the many, many children who came into the Detroit Public Library when I worked there as a children’s librarian, fresh out of the University of Michigan Library School. It was one of my “no fail” recommendations, a list of children’s books that I felt had (and, in the case of Walter the Lazy Mouse, still have) an almost unlimited appeal.

  Flack was a prolific writer, bringing out nearly a picture book a year early in her career. Probably her best-known book is The Story about Ping, which tells the tale of the unsupervised nighttime adventures of a duck that lives on a boat on China’s Yangtze River. (It was one of the books that Captain Kangaroo shared with his large television audience.) Flack’s Boats on the River, illustrated by Jay Hyde Barnum, was a Caldecott Honor book in 1947. Among my favorites of her other titles are Ask Mr. Bear, Wait for William, and, of course, the five books she wrote about a very inquisitive Scottish terrier named Angus (among them Angus and the Ducks, Angus and the Cat, and Angus Lost). It’s clear from her books that not only did Marjorie Flack love animals, she also knew the whys and wherefores of young children, and she understood (and wrote) exactly what would appeal to them.

  But I have a personal reason for cherishing Walter the Lazy Mouse. When my younger daughter Katie was a preschooler, it was extremely frustrating to go anywhere with her on foot because she walked at a snail’s pace—or, so it frequently seemed to me, even slower than any snail I’d ever seen. She appeared to be constitutionally unable to walk in a straight line from here to there. Instead, she meandered forward and backward, or, more frequently, from side to side, stopping to look at every little thing that interested her (which was, I felt, not unjustly, just about every little thing). It was impossible for me not to get ahead of her, no matter how I tried. Every few minutes I’d turn around and say (in a tone that couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than exasperation), “Come on, Katie. Hurry up!” When we finally got to where we were going—nursery school, around the block, the grocery store—I’d ask, “Can’t you walk any faster?” And Katie would respond that no, she couldn’t. And didn’t particularly want to.

  In Walter the Lazy Mouse, Walter’s parents face a similar dilemma. Walter simply does everything very slowly, whether it’s walking home from school or eating dinner. (Thank goodness Katie ate at a regular speed!) Walter’s just not interested in hurrying up. In fact, he’s happiest staying in bed or lazing around the house. (This was very unlike Katie, who was a whirling dervish at home, always on the move.) But because Walter has so many brothers and sisters, eventually his parents get tired of waiting for him, and gradually they forget that they even have a little mouse named Walter in their family. One day, when Walter gets home from school, he discovers that his house is empty. His parents have moved away to a new house, without him. Walter sets off on a journey to find them, in the course of which he has an adventure of his own, meets three delightful (if forgetful) frogs (who he names Lulu, Leander, and Percy), and learns some valuable lessons about laziness.

  On one particularly frustrating day Katie and I were walking home from the grocery store with a box of popsicles in the bag, which I just knew were melting rapidly in the Oklahoma heat. As usual, I quickly found myself far ahead of Katie. I stopped and impatiently called back to her, “You’re just like Walter the lazy mouse!”

  She moved a mite faster, and when she reached me, she put her hand in mine and said with a loving smile and great certainty, “But you’ll never leave me behind, will you, Mommy?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I would miss you too much.”

  And in the end, Walter’s parents don’t leave him behind, either. When Walter is reunited with his whole family, they welcome him back with great love.

  Walter the Lazy Mouse is a delight both for children and the adults in their lives. I hope you enjoy it as much I do.

  —Nancy Pearl

  Chapter One

  How Walter Mouse Lost His Home

  Once upon a time there was a small young mouse named Walter. Walter lived in Mouse Village in a very nice house with his father and mother and five brothers and six sisters, and they were a very busy mouse family—all but Walter. Walter was a lazy young mouse.

  In the morning, Walter was never quite dressed by the time his sisters and his brothers were having their breakfast, and when they started off for school, Walter would still be eating his cereal.

  Then he would run all the way to school, but no matter how fast he ran, somehow Walter would always be late.

  When Miss Gray, his teacher, would ask Walter, “How much is two and two?” Walter would think and think and then he would count his fingers, but he was so slow that by the time he said “Five!” the teacher had forgotten the question and was busy with someone else.

  When Walter went roller skating, he was so slow he could never catch up with his feet.

  When Walter played football, he was so slow he was always in the way of the other players.

  At first, Walter’s father and mother were greatly concerned because their little son was so lazy. They tried to hurry him and then they tried to punish him, but it did no good. Walter only seemed to grow lazier and slower. So since they were very busy mice with eleven other children to worry about, they gave it up.

  As time went on, Walter became so slow he never even saw his father or mother or sisters or brothers, because on school days, by the time Walter was up in the morning, his father had gone to the office and his mother had gone shopping and his sisters and brothers had all gone to school. By the time Walter got to school they were all home for lunch, and when Walter arrived home for lunch they had all left again. Walter was so slow that by the time he got home from school every night he was so late that the whole family had eaten their dinner and gone to bed. And on Saturdays and Sundays Walter never got out of bed at all.

  So, after a few months of this, Walter’s father and mother and sisters and brothers had not seen him for so long they forgot all about Walter. To be sure, his mother would sometimes say, “I wonder who left this empty bowl on the table,” or “What became of that piece of pie I left in the pantry?” But she was a very busy mother and did not give it a second thought.

  One spring evening when Walter came home from school, he went to the kitchen to find some food. When he opened the do
or he saw that the kitchen looked very strange. There was no stove, no table, no chairs. He went to the pantry and it was bare; not a crumb of food could he find. Walter went into the dining room; that, too, was empty. He went into the living room; not a bit of furniture was in it. Walter ran up the stairs and into his room. His bed was gone, his chair was gone, everything was gone! He looked in his closet, and even his clothes were gone. Then Walter knew! He knew that his father and his mother and his sisters and his brothers had all moved away and that they had forgotten all about him!

  Poor Walter did not know what to do. He was hungry and there was no food to eat and he was sleepy but there was no bed to sleep on. So Walter started out to find his family.

  Down the street he ran, but he did not know where to go, so Walter just kept on running. On and on he ran until soon there were no more houses in sight and Walter felt very depressed.

  Never before in his life had he been so far from home, and by now he was so hungry he was no longer sleepy. The moon was high overhead, everything looked strange, but Walter did not know what to do so he kept on running. Soon he found himself in a thick forest, and before he knew it, Walter had lost the road.

  Walter was tired. He was hungry. He did not know where his home was, he did not know where he was, so he sat down and he cried.

  He cried and he cried, but it did him no good because there was no one to hear him, no one to feel sorry for him, no one to help him.

  So Walter stopped crying and just sat there alone in the great forest. Soon he heard voices singing. So Walter scrambled through the forest; over stones, in the shadow of great mushrooms, on he went, trying to find the singers. Louder and louder grew the music and then Walter could hardly believe his eyes. He found himself at the edge of a great pond, and all about him were creatures he had never seen the like of before.

  They all had great bulging eyes. Some were small, so much smaller than Walter they made him feel large, and they sang in little high voices. Others were larger, a little larger than Walter, and they sang with medium-sized voices. But there was one huge creature, who was so huge he made Walter feel very small, and he sang in a great deep voice like a bass drum.

  Walter crept up to a tiny little creature and he whispered, “Have you seen my father and mother and sisters and brothers go by?” But the little creature did not hear him and went on singing. So Walter asked in a little louder voice, “Have you seen my father and mother and sisters and brothers go by?” But the little creature still did not hear him because they all were making such a racket. Then Walter shouted as loud as he could shout, “HAVE YOU SEEN MY FATHER AND MOTHER AND SISTERS AND BROTHERS GO BY?”

  But by the time Walter had said “seen,” all the creatures stopped their singing and he found himself shouting, shouting loudly in the quiet night.

  Walter was so embarrassed to find himself making such a noise, he did not know what to do. All around him he saw hundreds of faces looking silently at him. Now it was so still Walter was afraid to move.

  At last the great huge creature came galumphing over to him and in a great deep voice he asked, “What did you say?”

  Walter was so frightened he could hardly speak, but at last he managed to say, “Ha-have yo-you se-seen my father and mother and sisters and brothers go by?”

  By now all the strange creatures had gathered around Walter. Instead of answering him, the Huge One turned to them and asked, “Have you seen his father and mother and sisters and brothers go by?”

  Then they each asked each other, “Have you seen his father and mother and sisters and brothers go by?” Then they all sang together, “No-no-no, no, no.”

  Walter began to sob.

  “What is the matter?” asked the Huge One.

  “I am hungry, sir,” sobbed Walter.

  “Why don’t you eat then?” said the Huge One.

  “But I have nothing to eat, sir,” said Walter.

  “Well, look around and find something,” said the Huge One.

  So Walter looked around and he found some seeds to eat and he ate a great many, but then he felt so sleepy he began to cry again.

  “What is the matter?” asked the Huge One.

  “I am sleepy and I have no bed, sir.”

  “But if you are sleepy why don’t you just sleep?” said the Huge One. “Shut your eyes and go to sleep.”

  “Go to sleep, shut your eyes and go to sleep, go to sleep, to sleep, to sleep,” sang all the pond creatures together while the Huge One sang in his great deep voice,

  “To—sleep,

  “To—sleep,

  “Tooooo—sleeeeep.”

  Chapter Two

  How Walter Finds a New Home

  Walter was very tired, but he did not sleep late the next morning because the pond creatures were awake and bustling about.

  When he opened his eyes he saw that three very green creatures were sitting near him, staring at him with their great eyes and smiling with their wide mouths. He heard one whisper to another, “It’s a mouse,” and the other said, “Wonder where it came from.”

  Now Walter was a polite mouse and although he was very sleepy he managed to say, “Good morning.”

  They all said, “Good morning” very cheerfully, but then they said nothing more as they sat there staring and smiling.

  Walter tried to think of something more to say. At last he said, “My name is Walter Mouse. What is yours?”

  “Frog,” said the first creature.

  “Frog,” said the second creature.

  “Frog,” said the third creature.

  “But what are your first names?” asked Walter.

  “That’s all,” said the three frogs together.

  “Dear me,” said Walter, “how do you tell each other apart?”

  “I always know who I am,” said the first frog, and the second said “I do, too,” and the third said, “So do I.”

  “But,” said Walter, “how does anyone else know who is which?”

  “It doesn’t really matter,” they all answered together.

  “Oh,” said Walter. “But wouldn’t you like to have names just to be different?”

  “It might be nice,” said the first.

  “If they were nice names,” said the second.

  “Do you know any nice names?” asked the third.

  “Oh, lots and lots of them,” said Walter, and he named some. “Peter, Mary, John, Nancy, Lulu.”

  “I like that one,” said the first frog.

  “But it makes a difference if you are a boy or a girl,” said Walter.

  “I don’t care,” said the first one.

  So the first frog was named Lulu. And Walter went on.

  “There is George, Joan, Alice, Leander.”

  “I like that one,” said the second frog.

  So the second frog was named Leander, and Walter went on.

  “There is Edward, Henry, Peggy, Richard, Dorothy, Percy.”

  “I like that one,” said the third frog, so the third frog was named Percy.

  “Come swim with us?” said Lulu.

  “But I left my bathing suit at home,” said Walter.

  When Walter said “home,” he began to feel very sad again. And he said, “I don’t know where my home is!” and tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Oh, dear, oh, dear,” said Lulu as she saw Walter’s tears. “Let’s ask The Frog what to do.”

  “Who is The Frog?” asked Walter.

  “Oh, he is The Frog and all others are just frogs,” explained Leander.

  So they led Walter over to a huge creature who lay near the water’s edge. It was the same huge creature Walter had talked to the night before.

  Lulu explained carefully that Walter was unhappy because he did not know where his home was. The Frog only blinked his eyes and said, “It doesn’t really matter.”

  “But I need a home. I miss it, sir,” said Walter.

  “Why don’t you find one here?” said The Frog.

  “Oh, yes, do find one
here!” said Lulu.

  “But where shall I find it?” asked Walter.

  “Now let me see,” said The Frog, and he swung slowly around in the water, looking about with his great eyes. By the time he was halfway around he seemed to get tired and he settled down in the water with only his nose above, and his bulging eyes looked dreamy.

  Just as Walter was wondering if it would be polite to remind him about where to find a home, The Frog came puffing up to the surface of the water again. “Find your home on the island,” he said.

  Walter looked out over the water and sure enough, almost hidden by the green leaves of the water plants, he saw a beautiful little island not far from the shore.

  “Give it a name,” said Leander.

  Walter hesitated. “Will the whole island be all mine, sir?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said The Frog.

  “Let me name it,” begged Lulu. “I know an elegant name for it. Let’s name it Mouse Island!”

  “Yes, yes,” sang all three frogs together, “and you will be The Mouse of Mouse Island!” And they all jumped into the pond with a great splash, and Walter could see them swimming swiftly through the clear water toward Mouse Island.

  But Walter did not move from the shore; there he stood looking very lonely.

  “Why don’t you swim out to your island?” asked The Frog.

  “I have no bathing suit, sir!” said Walter.

  “That’s too bad,” said The Frog, and he settled down to doze in the sun.

  Soon Lulu and Leander and Percy all came swimming back for him.

  “Hurry up and come swim to Mouse Island,” they called to Walter.

  “But I can’t,” said Walter. “Don’t you remember I told you I have no bathing suit?”

  Lulu and Leander and Percy only looked rather blankly at Walter and said, “Did you?”

  The Frog slowly crawled up beside Walter.

  “Turtle might take you,” he said.

  “We will ask him,” said all three frogs, and they disappeared in the water. But soon they were back again, and with them came a large box turtle swimming through the water with just his head and his high shell above the surface. The Turtle came up to where Walter stood and crawled up on the shore. He smiled at Walter and said: