Sally Breslin: My Life: THERE ARE OVER 100 MICE IN MY HOUSE

Over 20 years ago, I was in a doll-collectors’ shop when I happened to spot the cutest mouse figurine I’d ever seen. It was tiny, only about an inch tall, and was riding a little tricycle that had buttons for the wheels. It was love at first sight.

“That mouse is so adorable!” I said to the clerk.

“That’s one of the Wee Forest Folk collection,” she said. “They’re made right in Massachusetts by a family called the Petersens. That little guy there is only $49.”

My enthusiastic smile faded. I’d been all set to whip out a $5 bill and buy it, but $49? I could just picture my husband filing for divorce.

“Yes, Your Honor, that’s right!” he’d say to the judge. “She fed me macaroni and cheese every night for two weeks, all because she bought a dumb little mouse on a tricycle!”

I went home without the mouse, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Fortunately, my birthday was only a few weeks after that, so when both my mother and my husband asked me what I wanted for a gift, I told them about the mouse. Then I crossed my fingers that one of them actually would go to the collectors’ store and the mouse still would be there...and they wouldn’t need a defibrillator when they saw the price.

It was my mother who came through with the mouse for me, but I could tell she thought I’d lost what little mind I had left.

“That’s really what you wanted?” she asked when I squealed with delight upon opening the box. “I nearly needed a magnifying glass to find it!”

Then my mother made the mistake of handing me something I hadn’t even known existed – a Wee Forest Folk brochure. My eyes lit up like 100-watt bulbs as I stared at the photos.

There were angel mice, Halloween mice and mice with cute names like Chief Geronimouse, Father Chris-Mouse and Joe Di-Mousio. The average price for each one was about $50, with some as high as $300.

I wanted to buy every mouse in the brochure.

I soon discovered that a store called Noah’s at the Mall of NH sold the Wee Forest Folk, so I started hanging around there, eyeing the mice on display in the glass case. The clerk finally told me I reminded her of a kid in a candy shop.

I think the drool in the corners of my mouth might have tipped her off.

For Christmas that year, my mother bought me a Wee Forest Folk Skier Mouse, complete with tiny skis and ski poles. My husband bought me the First-Date mice, sitting on a sofa and sharing a box of chocolates. And my neighbor surprised me with April Showers, a mouse wearing a yellow rain-slicker and hat.

I was in heaven.

Over the years, I collected more and more Wee Forest Folk and displayed them in a glass case on the wall. When that case got full, I bought another case and hung it next to the first one. And when that one got full, I bought two more.

“All these display cases are beginning to make this place look like a museum,” my husband said.

“More like a ‘mouse-eum’!” I joked.

He rolled his eyes and groaned.

The only problem was, each year new mice were issued, and each year the prices got higher. A motorcycle-riding mouse was $145. A bride and groom were $118. A scarecrow mouse was $168.

So I turned to Ebay to see if I could find a better deal there. There were over 300 Wee Forest Folk listed. The competition was pretty fierce, but I finally won a “mint-condition” Miss Bobbin, a mouse sitting at sewing machine, for only $55. I was thrilled.

When Miss Bobbin arrived, I eagerly opened the box…only to discover she had an ear missing. Even more puzzling, the ear wasn’t anywhere in the box.

“That’s a pretty good clue that your ‘mint-condition’ mouse was already broken when it was sent,” my husband said. “If the ear fell off during shipping, it would still be in the box somewhere.”

He had a point. I contacted the seller and explained the problem.

Her tone immediately was defensive. “How do I know you didn’t open the box and drop the mouse and break it yourself?” she said. “All of my items are in perfect condition when I ship them. I’m not about to give you a refund!”

I was so upset, I vowed never to look at another mouse again.

“It’s probably a good thing you stopped collecting the mice,” my husband said one day a few weeks later. “They’re too expensive now anyway. And you’ll never get back what you paid for them if you try to sell them in the future.”

“Well, ‘Pack Mouse’, which was $19 when it first came out back in the early ‘80s, just sold for $410 on Ebay,” I told him.

“Get your coat,” he said. “We’re going to Noah’s.”

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