Once, in the long grass where the sun lay heavy, a Lion slept. A little Mouse, hurrying home and not looking where she ran, scampered straight across the great paws — and woke him.
Quick as thought the Lion's claw closed round her. "So," he rumbled, "a morsel come to me in my sleep." The Mouse trembled, but she did not go quiet. "Spare me, King," she squeaked, "and one day I may repay the kindness."
The Lion laughed — for what help could a mouse ever be to a lion?
Yet the sound of it pleased him, and being full and warm, he opened his paw and let her go. Not many days after, hunters spread their nets among the trees, and the Lion, for all his strength, was caught fast and roaring.
The Mouse knew that roar. She came at once, and set her small sharp teeth to the ropes — gnaw, and gnaw, and gnaw — until the great knots fell apart, and the King of Beasts walked free.
No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.