GOING UP THE SPOUT.
Rats and mice, like ourselves, often labor at a great disadvantage while endeavoring to make a livelihood. They often make a miss of it altogether by not knowing the proper time to set out upon an expedition. Their life is a perpetual skirmish. They have to take chances and be upon their guard continually. Their mortal enemy and dread, the cat, may be asleep in the fourth story, and the poor mouse knows not of it as he looks wistfully across the interveningspace between the ash barrel and the basement stairs; but after weighing the chances of escape or capture, he scurries across the opening with as much haste as though the sharp claws of pussy were raking the stunted fur from his wiry tail.
The sun may pour down its genial rays and the planks which his way lies over be warm and inviting, but he cannot loiter to enjoy its warmth or survey the beauties of nature. Oh! who would be a mouse? sigh I, as I sit and ponder over his life of inherent fear and uncertainty.
He seems to have no confidence in himself. His actions are like those of an inferior checker player. Shove about as he may, the chances are he will soon regret the manœuvre, and wish himself safely back again at the starting point.
AN OBJECT OF SUSPICION.
AN OBJECT OF SUSPICION.
AN OBJECT OF SUSPICION.
Everything about the premises seems to be after him. He regards the old blacking-brush that lies under the bench with looks of suspicion for hours together, and dare not risk a scamper past. He takes it for a horrid cat, quietly and patiently biding her time. He retires into his hole and waits fully an hourbefore peeping out again; but there it sits to blast his sight and cause a cold thrill to run along his little spine. The fact that it does not change its position does not in the least weaken his mistrust; on the contrary, it rather strengthens it. “It is so cat-like,” he says to himself, “for it to be sitting there motionless.” In the handle projecting from one end he very naturally thinks he recognizes the tail, and at this new discovery he backs into his hole again in great trepidation.
He feels certain now that he was right in his suspicions. Another wait follows. On again emerging, there it lies as before; and if that mouse was profane, and had a soul to hazard, it would undoubtedly hazard it, and roundly berate that brush through compressed teeth.
It takes but little to set a poor mouse into a perfect fluster. Down rolls a stick of wood from the pile, and Mr. Mouse, nibbling at the other corner of the shed, jumps at least eight feet in the direction of his hole. The wind blows down the clothes-line stick, and simultaneous with its fall upon the planks the heart, liver and lights of the poor mouse seem to berunning a steeple-chase to see which can jump from his mouth first. Away he scurries across the yard, so fast, that though your eyes were endeavoring to keep up with him all the way, you merely knowsomethinghas been moving, but can only surmise what.
We sometimes think the trials and disappointments of humanity are great, but dear me! what are they compared to the miseries of these poor creatures. From their hardships deliver me! For all their care and caution, they do so often miscalculate. This is evidenced by the number of times our old cat enters the house with her mouth full, and her eyes sparkling with pride.
There is nothing so very degrading or humiliating in a cat’s life, and the thought of becoming a cat does not make one shudder as does the thought of becoming a mouse. A good household cat does not occupy such a very bad position in life after all; bygoodI mean an excellent mouser, one never guilty of letting a mouse escape after having the second wipe at him; no scraggy creature with stove-singed back and scolloped ears, but a well-behaved, home-lovinganimal. The lot of such a creature is preferable to that of some men whom I have met in life, that is, if there were no rude children in the house. There is always some drawback; a cat is peculiarly blessed that lives in a house where there are no children; it seems to be counted as one of the family almost, and its life, though short, is certainly a happy one. But ah! these reckless children, that snatch up Tommy by the tail as they would a sauce-pan, and as though the tail was actually intended for a handle. On second thought, the life of a cat is not so very pleasant after all.
For the last half hour I have been deeply interested in the manœuvres of a large rat in the yard of an adjacent house. He has made three unsuccessful attempts to go up the sink-spout. Thrice has he glided up the slippery incline until the tip of his long tail disappeared from view, but as often has he beat a hasty retreat, assisted on his downward way by a rushing torrent of hot dish-water.
ON A RAID.
ON A RAID.
ON A RAID.
He is a determined fellow, however, and sticks to an enterprise with the spirit and pertinacity of a world-seeking Columbus, or a prison-breaking Monte Christo. No doubt the hungry edge of appetite is whetted by the strong effluvium arising from Limburger cheese (the people are Germans) that fills the whole atmosphere with an odor truly agreeable to the rodent nose, every time the pantry door is opened. The cheese has been lately stirred up, I presume, by the trenchant knife of Pater-familias, and consequently the poor hunger-pinched rat is alluredup the spout at this inopportune hour, while the servant girl is washing the dishes.
Every living creature has its weakness. The horse whinnies when the oats draw nigh, and forgets the galling collar. Sheep, that at other times will not come within gunshot, grow tame and unsuspicious when the salt is shaken in the pan.
The hog has a penchant for clover-roots, or wherefore does the rusted wire ring ornament his nose? Is it there because it is the fashion? Ask the farmer.
And undoubtedly cheese is the weakness of the rat family. It is their aim, and often their end, too. It is the shrine to bow down before which the rat will jeopardize his life every hour of the twenty-four.
He dreams of it. In his fitful slumbers he beholds it ranged around him tier on tier, as in a great store room, and not a cat within forty leagues. He is in the rat’s Paradise, and happy. No deceptive poisons that consume the stomach, no insidious, subtle traps, yawning ready to clutch the unsuspecting victim, surround him. He is safe and at peace, and would dwell thereforever and forever in one unbroken endless night. But the heavy rumbling of a dray startles him, for all sweet dreams have their wakings, alas! that it is so! He wakes, and where is he? Under the wet sidewalk, drenched and tousled with the drippings of the day’s rain, with nothing for breakfast but a dry onion peel, the prog of the previous night, which nothing but a forty-eight hours’ fast could induce him to seize. Ah, me! what chances the fellow has to take in order to secure sufficient sustenance to keep life and body together.
“Honor pricks me on,” soliloquized old Sir John, on the field of Shrewsbury, when he withdrew from the general clash and rendering up of souls, to breathe a spell, and moralize upon the insignificance of Fame, or Honor, as against the value of life. But nothing pricks on the poor rat but his craving little digestive organs. The mill is crying out for grists, the hopper is empty, the stone still turning, and something must be done, and that quickly.
No honor is attached to the expedition, and even though he should succeed in making the “inning,” which is doubtful, all that can be saidis that he has “gone up the spout,” and in the common acceptation of the saying, that is certainly nothing to be very highly elated over.
I actually feel ashamed when I think of the many projects I have abandoned through life, because I met with slight reverses. Here before me is this poor water-soaked rat, his hair still smoking from his recent scald, emerging once more from behind the wood box, determined to solve the problem of the sink-spout or perish in the attempt. A grim smile of resolution seems to part his pointed features, as he moves quietly up to the dripping conduit from which he lately scampered with steaming ribs.
They may talk of deeds of noble daring, of vaulting the breach, or traversing the wild; but for sterling courage, for indomitable perseverance and pluck, commend me to this little adventurer in my neighbor’s yard. In the face of three scalding inundations, he ventures again upon the expedition, unshaken, unsubdued, unterrified. He takes more chances and subjects himself to more risks in ascending that spout than old Samuel de Champlain in exploring up the St. Lawrence among the Iroquois.
What if the large flea-pasturing dog lying indolently in the yard would rouse from the lethargic sleep that holds him, and for once make himself useful by thrusting his bristling muzzle up the orifice after the little explorer, thereby cutting off retreat in the event of another disastrous deluge? The terrible result of such an action on the part of the dog is too painful and improbable to contemplate.