A Church Mouse Thanksgiving

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

The Greynose family had been living in the old church for many, many generations. They were church-mice, you see. All the Greynoses had light grey spots on their snouts, and sometimes on their backs, which all the neighborhood mice thought the very height of fashion. The old church was a beautiful old building with white walls, dark wood and a tall bell tower, although no bells had hung there for many, many years.

The mice had lots of work to do. You see, the humans were all very messy, always leaving dusty footprints, spilled coffee and best of all, tons and tons of crumbs! There were always so many glorious crumbs: doughnut crumbs and cookie crumbs; bread crumbs and even cheese crumbs and little bits of chocolate!

The Greynoses would wait until the last human left and the last light was off, and then they would spring into action: Molly Greynose would start gathering crumbs in the kitchen while Old Moses Greynose would lead a team across Parish Hall. The very youngest and skinniest Greynoses had the best job of all – they would climb to the very top of the organ pipes and then slide, racing down the inside of the pipes as if they were on a roller coaster! Their fur worked like a feather dusters, cleaning the pipes so they always sounded great when their old friend Mr. Mahlon came in to play it. One thing most people don’t know is that mice love organ music.

Through the years, the Greynose family gradually started to think that they were better than other mice. After all, they had a very important job, had lots to eat, and lived in a beautiful stone building, while so many other mice had to live in fields, abandoned buildings or under rotten logs. Nobody likes to be looked down upon, not even mice, and so whenever the other neighborhood mice referred to the Greynoses, they always did it like this, (nose in the air), “Oh, heavens yes, the Greynoses!”

But one day, everything changed. One evening, right after a big party at the church (and there was a lot of perfectly delectable cheese and cracker-crumbs scattered about), the whole Greynose family waited with watering mouths, ready for an especially good dinner. But the humans didn’t leave. Instead they plugged a very loud sucking machine into the wall and started walking back and forth across Parish Hall (what do you think they were doing?) – and the machine sucked up ALL the wonderful crumbs, every last one!

“Nooooooo!!!!!” Molly Greynose cried.

“Nooooooo!!!!!” Moses Greynose cried.

“Nooooooo!!!!!” all the Greynoses cried.

But there was nothing they could do. The crumbs, all the wonderful crumbs were gone. And that night, for the first time in generations, the Greynoses went to bed hungry.

They went hungry the next night too, and the next, and the next night after that. All there was to eat were the little bits that got stuck in places the terrible sucking machine couldn’t reach. It was terrible, and all their stomachs growled.

The mice were tired and dejected. They were even to tired to race down the organ tubes, and soon old Mr. Mahlon was scratching his head and wondering why dust kept shooting out of the organ pipes when he played.

Desperate, old Moses Greynose went across the street to the big park, where the wisest of all the field mice lived.

“Oh, you’ve been invaded” the wise old mouse said knowingly, “by a vacuum cleaner. They’re everywhere these days. Terrible, awful monsters they are, too!”

“But what can I do? My family is starving!”

“There, there, Moses, we will help you.”

That night all the neighborhood mice came. They chewed the electric cord and the vacuum bag into little bits, and when the humans replaced it, they came back and chewed it up again. And again. And again! Eventually the humans realized that this was a fight they would never win, and one day they just gave up – and lo the floor was rich with crumbs once more!

The Greynoses were very kind after that. They had learned what it feels like to go hungry. They had learned what it feels like to be scared. They learned how good it feels to be grateful, to share, and to give thanks. They took even better care of the church than ever, and Mr. Balderston said that the organ had never sounded so good. They invited all the neighborhood mice over for a Thanksgiving Feast, and as soon as the last human left and the last light went out – all the mice, young and old, rich and poor, joined together for the biggest party any mouse had ever seen – and nobody went to sleep hungry that night!

Guest at Your Table

Most of us have enough to eat. Most of us have plenty of toys and games, and in a few days, on Thanksgiving, we will feast. But there are many, many people in the world, even kids just like you – who will not have enough to eat, who don’t have any toys at all, or even water to drink when they are thirsty. And we can help.

Today we are handing out these boxes from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee: all you do is leave them on your dinner table until after Christmas, and every time you sit down to eat, drop some change in: pennies, nickels, quarters, dollars – every bit will help make someone’s life a little bit easier. It will help women in Kenya build a place to store their food, kind of like a refrigerator; it will help people in Nigeria make fresh drinking water so they won’t get sick anymore; it will even help poor villages buy special bicycle ambulances to help sick people get to the hospital.

Who wants to help? As the basket comes around, I invite you to take one per family – and kids, why don’t you take one for your family now?