Perhaps you are familiar with Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse” which he wrote after he had over turned the nest of a mouse while he was ploughing:
“ wee cowrin’, timrous beastie
O, what a panic in thy breastie.”
Obviously, Burns had empathy with the predicament of the wee mouse being left homeless. My mother, on the other hand, shared no such empathic or sympathetic feelings.
Our large farm house had quite a big pantry. This larder housed two huge bins each designed to hold 100 lbs. of flour and sugar respectively and had casters attached to facilitate pulling them in and out. Also the pantry had several drawers stacked on one side and shelved cupboards which extended to the ceiling. The pantry, cellar door and parlour door formed an open-sided quadrant just off the main kitchen.
From time to time a mouse would invade the pantry. This was an ill-fated decision for that tiny critter for as you will learn, once my mother spied a mouse, it may as well have turned over on its back with its four wee legs stuck straight up in the air, wave a white flag and surrender to its inescapable destiny — death!
My mother was quite high strung and excitable, perhaps at times, a bit neurotic, and nothing seemed to trigger those traits more than seeing a mouse scurrying around in the pantry. It did not matter what my two siblings and I were involved in when the “mouse alarm” was sounded. We had to drop everything. We were automatically drafted into my mother’s army. Our rodent removal war manoeuvres were well ingrained in our young brains and we automatically put our training into action with the goal to eliminate the enemy —- that hated varmint. We knew the drill very well and a well-oiled military attack was immediately set in motion:
(1) The huge 100 lb. bins were strategically pulled out to the larger part of the kitchen by my mother.
(2) My oldest sister stuffed a big towel under the cellar door to prevent mousie from escaping down to the cellar.
(3) My older sister grabbed the kitchen mats and stuffed them under the parlour door thus blocking off that escape route.
(4) Both sisters then armed themselves with goose wings (which we used to dust down the stairs because you could get into the corners really well with goose wings) and stationed themselves in the open side of the quadrant prepared to sweep quickly to deter the mouse from escaping from the battle zone into the kitchen proper.
(5) Then I retrieved a stick of wood from the wood box , the weapon that would carry out the coup-de gras, and stood by and also served as a rear scout to inform the 5-star general, my mother, on the movements and counter-movements of the adversary.
(6) My mother, with broom in hand, poked, prodded and methodically guided the tiny terror-stricken, panicked creature to desert its fortress and try to flee to a position of freedom.
The poor little mouse was destined to lose the battle because when my mother got the “enemy” cornered by expert forays with her broom weapon, she would grab the stick, the cudgel, from my hand and WHACK!!! The siege was over!! Victory was ours!!
Now Robbie Burns’ sentiment for the life of a tiny mouse:
“I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union, …..O fellow mortal …”
was definitely not shared by my mother.
And as Robbie Burns penned:
“The best laid schemes of mice and men
Gang aft agley.”
sympathizing with the poor little mouse losing its home, I think my mother’s interpretation would be more like: “The best laid plans of mice often go astray!”
