Many stories have been told in the past, tending to show that wild
animals when in trouble will display surprising confidence in man, in
fact will often seek his assistance when sore beset. The writer, when a
boy upon a farm in Minnesota, had an experience with a field mouse which
prettily illustrates this trait in wild creatures. It was stacking time
and the men were all busy in the fields lifting the shocks of cured
grain and stacking them in hive-shaped stacks in the barnyard. The
writer, a barefoot boy at that time, had been following the wagons in
the field all the morning in a vain endeavor to capture some field mice
to take home as pets. He had seen a number of the drab little creatures
with their short tails, but had failed to lay his hands upon any of
them, owing to the thick stubble and the nimbleness of the mice. At
last, as a particularly large shock was lifted, a broken nest was
disclosed and the youthful mouser was put upon the qui vive by the
slender squeaks of seven or eight hairless little beings that were so
young as not to have opened their eyes as yet. The mother disappeared
with a whisk, whereupon the young hunter sat down in a critical attitude
beside the nest and began to examine his find. He had already put one of
the young mice in his trousers pocket when the mother reappeared out of
the stubble beside the nest. The boy held his breath and awaited
developments. Much to his surprise, the mouse-mother, after carefully
examining the ruined nest, entered his pocket, which, as he sat, opened
very near to the nest. She seemed to come to the conclusion very quickly
that her lost little one had found a very good home, and in about two
minutes had transferred the remainder of her offspring from the nest to
the pocket, carrying them one at a time in her mouth.
The writer has had many varied experiences with wild animals, but none
of them impressed him so strongly as the episode of the mouse-mother in
the wheat stubble.
J. Clyde Hayden.