THE FARMER AND HIS WIFE ARE IN DESPAIR
A pity ’tis, but it is true,
The innocent must suffer too.
_Billy Mink._
The farmer who owned the big barn where the Rats had lived was puzzled.
After a few days he became sure that there wasn’t a Rat left in the big
barn. He knew that they had all moved over to the farmhouse. They had
been bad enough when they had lived in the big barn, but they were ever
so much worse living in the house. He knew that Rats did not move like
this without a cause. This meant that they must have been driven out of
the big barn, and who or what could have driven them out was more than
the farmer could guess. For years he had tried to get rid of the Rats
there and hadn’t been able to. Now suddenly they had deserted the big
barn and taken possession of his house.
“I wish,” said the farmer, “I could find out what drove those Rats over
here. Then perhaps I could use the same means to drive them out of the
house.”
“I wish you could,” replied his wife. “I don’t know what we’re going to
do. Those Rats are getting so bold that they don’t pay any attention to
me at all. They run across the pantry floor in broad daylight. The only
way I can keep food safe from them is in tin cans or earthen jars with
covers, and they have even managed to get the covers off of some of
these. They get in the flour barrel. They have spoiled the milk. They
have stolen the eggs. In fact, there isn’t anything they haven’t gotten
into. They keep me awake nights by their squealing and racing about
through the walls. They’re getting so bold that I am afraid of them.”
So the farmer set all his traps. He set traps in the attic and in the
pantry and in the woodshed. He put poisoned food where he was sure the
Rats would find it. But it was all in vain. Those Rats had learned all
about traps, and the gray old leader of them had learned to be
suspicious of food left where it was easy to get. He warned the other
Rats not to touch this food. The farmer blocked up the holes in the
pantry walls, but as fast as he blocked them up, the Rats gnawed new
ones.
So it was that the farmer and his wife were in despair. Do what they
would, they couldn’t get rid of those Rats. The Rats got into the cellar
and stole the vegetables. It got so the farmer’s wife didn’t dare go
down cellar. She was afraid of being bitten by a Rat, and you know the
bite of a Rat often is poisonous.