thanksgiving cat poem (thanks oliver herford)

A Thanksgiving Fable.
It was a hungry pussy cat, upon Thanksgiving morn,
And she watched a thankful little mouse that ate an ear of corn.
"If I ate that thankful little mouse, how thankful he should be,
When he has made a meal himself, to make a meal for me! 

Then with his thanks for having fed, and his thanks for feeding me, 

With all his thankfulness inside, how thankful I shall be!" 

Thus mused the hungry pussy cat, upon Thanksgiving Day; 

But the little mouse had overheard and declined (with thanks) to stay. 

—Our hero, Oliver Herford, in the Oregon Teachers' Monthly, Vol. 19 no. 3 (November 1914), p. 129.