Allen heard this Finnish tale as a child. Jukka, obeying a wise woman's counsel to ``Follow the way the tree falls,'' finds a little house that contains not his expected ``own dear one'' but a little mouse. Still, the mouse undertakes to meet Jukka's father's requests, producing a loaf of bread and a length of cloth that are superior to those made by Jukka's two older brothers' new, similarly discovered fianc‚es. At last, the mouse is restored to her real form, a princess, and all ends happily.

Allen, who has studied with Tasha Tudor, depicts the northern forest and the mouse's tidy household with its traditional furnishings in loving, realistic detail rendered in soft, smoothly applied color. A charming story with an appealingly self-reliant little heroine.