The Hole in the Bag

The market opened at nine. The cow had a bag of tomatoes on her back, and the mouse walked next to her.

After ten minutes, the mouse stopped. There was a tomato on the road. Then another one.

“Cow! Your tomatoes are falling,” he said.

The cow looked back, but the bag was behind her. “I can’t see it,” she said.

The mouse ran up her leg and into the bag. There was a small hole in the bottom.

He put a leaf on the hole. It fell out. He pushed a tomato over it. That fell out too.

Then the mouse sat in the hole. “Now walk,” he said.

The cow walked on, and no more tomatoes fell.

At the market, the farmer opened the bag. “Thirty tomatoes,” he said. He didn’t see the gray thing at the bottom.

“Thirty tomatoes and one mouse,” the cow said quietly.