Once upon a time there was a very beautiful doll's house : it was red with white windows, and it had real muslin curtains and a front door. Two dolls called Lucinda and Jane lived there. Jane was the cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner was bought ready-made. There were two red lobsters, some ham, a fish, a pudding, some pears and oranges. They were not real, but they were very beautiful.
One morning Lucinda and Jane want out. There was no one in the nursery. Tom Thumb put his head out of the hole near the fireplace. Tom Thumb was a mouse. A minute latter, Hunca Munca , his wife, put her head, too.
The doll's house was not far from the fireplace. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca came in to the house and want upstairs to the living room. Such a lovely dinner was on the table! There were spoons, and knives and forks, and two dolly- chairs - all so comfortable! Tom Thumb wanted to cut the ham, but it was very hard. " Give me some fish. Hunca Munca !" said Tom. Hunca Munca tried every spoon but the fish didn't come off the plate.
Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham on the floor, and broke it with the shovel - bang, bang, smash,smash! The ham flew all into pieces, for under the paint there was nothing but plaster! Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears and the oranges.
Then they want to the dolls' bad room. Tom Thumb took Jane's clothes out of the chest of drawers and he threw them out of the window. With Tom Thumb's help Hunca Munca brought a chair, a bookcase, a birdcage, and some other small thing to the mouse hole. The bookcase and the birdcage didn't go into it. Hunca Munca left them behind house and went to get a cradle. Suddenly the dolls come into the nursery. The mice ran back to back to their hole. Now Hunca Munca has got the cradle and some of Lucinda's clothes
So that is the story of the two Bad Mice - but they were not so very , very naughty. Tom Thumb paid for every thing he broke. He found a sixpence under the rug; and upon Christmas Eve, he and Hunca Munca put it into one of the stockings for Lucinda and Jane
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