Ukraine, a country of quite a size, stretches above
the Black Sea in Eastern Europe. Its cold winters require warm gloves, which
leads us to a story.
In a small village nestled in the country’s rolling
hills lived a boy named Nicki with his grandma. One winter he asked his grandma
for wool mittens as white as snow.
“If you drop one in the snow, you will not find it,”
responded she. But the boy was persistent until the grandma agreed.
As soon as Nicki had his new mittens he ran outside
to climb a leafless tree. He climbed and climbed and was almost at the top,
when one of his mittens slipped to the ground. “I’ll sit here for a bit and
pick the mitten on my way home,” thought the boy.
Meanwhile, a mole tunneling through the snow
discovered the mitten. “It’s so warm and fuzzy. I’ll rest here for a bit.”
A snowshoe rabbit hopped his way toward the tree,
when he noticed the mitten. He wiggled in. The mole was about to say that there
was no more room, but seeing rabbit’s big kickers he simply moved over.
Next a hedgehog sniffing for food came across the
mitten. Cold and tired, he decided to warm his body in the mitten. The mole and
rabbit seeing the prickles, made the room without arguing.
As soon as the hedgehog was inside the mitten, a big
owl attracted by the commotion on the ground lowered his flight. And of course,
he wanted to go inside too. As the animals were about to protest, they saw the
owl’s talons and let him in.
Up to now a badger, sleeping at the bottom of tree’s
opening, woken up by the fuss outside approached the animals. As the animals
thought that there was absolutely no more room, they saw the badger’s diggers
and showed him the thumb.
It started snowing, when a fox ran looking for a
warm place. Seeing warm mitten, it pushed its way in. Shining with its white
teeth, the fox had no problem getting in.
A warm and fuzzy bear stumped its way toward the
mitten. “I won’t be left out,” with those words he pushed his large body into
the mitten. The mitten stretched and bulged, but nobody would argue with such
large animals as bear.
A tiny meadow mouse spotted a large warm mitten. No
bigger than an acorn, she made herself comfortable on top of the bear’s nose.
The mouse wiggled, tickling the bear with its
whiskers.
The bear gave such a forceful sneeze that all
animals flew out in all directions.
At the same time, the boy decided it was time to go
back home. As he climbed down, the mitten flew up straight into his hand. Happy
boy walked to the hut not making much out of a flying mitten a bit bigger than
the original size.
Source: The Mitten by Jan Brett
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