HC-66, Box 11014
Pahrump, NV 89048
Copyright © 1999 by W. E. Lopez
When Mrs. Mischief Was
Absent
By
W. E. Lopez
Rupert the Squirrel was
moving very cautiously through the gloom in the darkness of the loft in the old
barn on the Lovely Farm. He made barely
a sound as his tiny feet softly went pitter-pat, pitter-pat. It had been more than a week since that
first surprise snowfall had covered the little farm in the Ohio valley with a
thick fluffy blanket of white. The snow
had come very early this year, even before Halloween, and Rupert had not stored
nearly enough hickory nuts in the hollow of the tree where he lived.
Farmer Lovely stored plenty
of feed and grain in the loft to feed his animals through the coming winter,
and Rupert decided that it would be okay for him to help himself to some of the
farmer's corn. All he had to do now was
keep a careful eye out for Mrs. Mischief, the gold and orange and tan cat who
was the Chief Executive in Charge of Rodent Control on the Lovely farm. It was her job to protect Farmer Lovely's
seed against rats and mice that could gobble it all up leaving none for the
livestock and none for planting when the lush greenness of spring returned to
the valley.
Rupert crept carefully past
sacks of wheat and oats and barley until he found the sack of corn where he had
chewed a small hole many nights ago.
Since then he had returned several times every night to stuff his little
cheeks with the golden kernels of corn and take them back to his store house in
the hollow tree next to the barn.
He poked his head into the
tiny hole and began stuffing his cheeks with corn. This was the ninth trip he had made tonight and he was very
tired. Also it was getting very late
and he wanted to get back to his tree and curl up in the soft straw he had
brought inside to make a warm and cozy little bed.
When his cheeks were stuffed
so that he couldn't squeeze in even one more kernel of corn, he began to make
his way back to the secret knothole in the wall that led outside and to the
nearby branch of his tree.
Suddenly there was a
scuffling sound atop the sacks of grain and then a plop as something landed on
the wooden floor of the loft. This was
followed by a fearful "Meeerroooww!" that sent shivers up Rupert's
little spine. Suddenly a furry paw with
razor sharp claws swung at Rupert from the darkness. "Meeerroooowwww!" the cat screeched again.
Rupert ducked his head and
the paw struck him on the back and sent him skidding across the planks to land
in the hay stored on the other side of the loft. He lost most of the corn he was carrying in his cheeks when the
furry paw knocked the wind out of him and lost the rest as he began frantically
burrowing beneath the hay. He could
hear the cat pouncing through the straw looking for him. The dry straw crackled and crunched beneath
the heavy paws of the cat.
Rupert burrowed faster and
faster, digging a tunnel beneath the straw toward the back wall. When he got there he would turn right, no,
left, and in a short distance he could reach his secret knothole and leap out
into the darkness and into the safety of the tree where he made his home.
He pushed his way through
the straw trying to be as quiet as he could, but he knew the strange cat was
still out there searching for him. A
cat that could eat a tiny mouse or even a larger rat would even be able to eat
Rupert, if it could catch him. Rupert
pushed his nose into free air now and he could see the knothole just a few feet
away. It seemed like a very great
distance for him to run across the open floor with the cat searching for him,
but he would have to chance it if he wanted to escape!
Rupert gathered his legs
beneath him and tensed his muscles while preparing to run faster than he had
ever run in his life. He heard the cat
in the straw again and decided the time was now or never!
Off like a shot he scurried,
his tiny legs pushing and his lungs pounding as he ran and ran and ran. He heard foot falls behind him now! "Meeerrroooooowwwww!" the cat was
after him again. Faster and faster he
ran until it seemed his lungs would burst from the effort. The cat's long legs took great strides and
it was rapidly closing the distance, ready to pounce on Rupert!
When the knothole was only
inches in front of his whiskers, Rupert leaped out into space and the darkness
of the night! He flew through the air
at least four lengths of his out stretched body until he grasped a twig and
landed on the branch leading to his hidey-hole. Behind him he could hear the cat as it dug in trying to stop
before hitting the wall of the barn, but it's paws only skidded on the loose
straw covering the floor of the barn.
Thump! It went as its body smacked against the wall, for the knothole
was much too small for the cat to go through.
"Whewww!" thought
Rupert. "That certainly was a
close one." He scampered along the
branch without pausing until he ducked into his little hole and crawled into
his cozy nest of dried straw.
Still breathing hard and
panting, his breath coming in gasps, Rupert thanked his lucky stars that the
cat had not caught him. Then he wrapped
his bushy tail around his shoulders and burrowed deep into his nest and fell
asleep.
When morning came, Sunrise
the Rooster was up while it was still dark outside. Sunrise flapped his wings and with a powerful leap, jumped to the
top of the hen house where he strutted up and down. This was a very important time of the day for it was his job to
waken all the farm animals to start the day.
He also had to call the sun so it would spread it's warming light across
the winter valley. The rooster's job
was very important for the day could not begin if he over-slept; something
Sunrise had never done in his life.
He drew in a deep breath of
air and puffed his chest feathers out.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" he crowed. Then he took another deep breath, "Cock-a-doodle-dooooooo!"
he crowed again. He certainly hoped the
sun wasn't going to be lazy this morning or he would have to keep crowing and
crowing until the sun decided to get out of bed.
Soon started to turn gray in
the east, and then pink, and then the first rays of golden sunlight began to
poke over the nearby mountains. At
last, the sun was getting up and the day could begin again on the Lovely Farm.
Lights went on in the
kitchen of the Lovely house and the farmer's wife began preparing
breakfast. While she was cooking,
Farmer Lovely crunched through the snow and out to the barn. He carried a bucket of table scraps that had
been saved from last night’s meal and emptied them into the trough for Porker
the Pig. He also added several scoops
of corn and oats for the children of the farmer and his wife were grown now and
had moved away, so there were not as many table scraps as there had been once.
While Porker was having
breakfast, Farmer Lovely used a pitchfork to toss hay in for Leroy and Laverne,
the llamas. After the llamas had been
fed, Farmer Lovely put several scoops of corn and oats into the feed bucket for
Napoleon the Mule.
"Steady-boy," Farmer Lovely said as he added water to the
mule's drinking pail. None of the farm
animals had ever heard the farmer call the mule Napoleon, so they all thought
his name was Steady-boy. Even the mule
thought so!
After feeding the mule,
Farmer Lovely put Giselle the Goat into her milking stand and added some feed
for her. While she browsed, he massaged
and washed her udder and then began steadily milking her. "Psshhhht, pssshhht, pssshhht,"
went the goat's milk as it splashed into a clean pail. "Pssshhhhht, psssshhhht,
pssssshhhhht."
When the pail was more than
half full and Farmer Lovely had finished milking Giselle, he let her out of the
stand so she could browse on her own.
Then he took the pail of milk into the kitchen where Mrs. Lovely would
have waffles and eggs and bacon waiting for him, with rich tasting maple syrup
and lots of fresh butter.
About the time Farmer Lovely
was leaving the barn, Rupert was running down his tree to land in the soft snow
covering the ground. The snow was only
a few inches deep, but Rupert's tiny feet sunk right down into it. To make his way into the barn he had to make
tiny leaps, a few inches at a time, and sometimes rolled into a ball as he
landed in the fluffy snow. When he reached
the barn he squeezed under the door and went inside where it was warm and
cheerful with his friends.
"Good morning,
Rupert," Porker said between bites.
"Did you sleep well last night?"
"Goodness, no!"
said Rupert. "I was attacked by a
strange cat and nearly killed, almost, I think." Rupert scampered across the floor of the barn and began to nibble
at some corn that the farmer had spilled when feeding Steady-boy.
"Oh?" said
Steady-boy. "Was that you up in
the loft last night? From all that
racket, I thought Butch had cornered a dozen rats trying to steal Farmer
Lovely's grain."
"Butch? Who's Butch?" Rupert asked.
"You mean you didn't
know?" Giselle said.
Solomon the Owl fluttered
down from the rafters where he made his home.
"Farmer Lovely found where one of his grain sacks had been nibbled
into last week. He thought Mrs.
Mischief might be getting too old to properly protect his grain, so he put her
in the house and borrowed Butch from Mr. Douglas down the lane to keep the rats
and mice out of his loft."
"Oh, dear me,"
Rupert said. "I didn't know. It was I who had been borrowing some of
Farmer Lovely's grain because this early snow caught me unprepared for winter. I don't have half enough nuts stored away to
last until spring, and the farmer has so much grain I didn't think he would
mind if I took a little of it."
"Then it was you,"
Steady-boy said to Rupert. "I'm
ashamed of you. Don't you know better
than to steal?"
"Well, I wasn't really
stealing, Steady-boy. The grain is for
all the animals, so I was only sharing, you might say."
"The grain is for all
the animals who are kept on
the farm, Rupert," Giselle said.
"Because we can't browse or forage in the woods, the farmer has to
take care of us. That means feeding us
through the long winter."
"Besides," said
Leroy, "not all the grain is for feed.
Some has to be used for planting in the spring to make a crop for next
year. That's why Mrs. Mischief has to
keep the rats and mice away, or we might go hungry and Farmer Lovely could even
lose the farm next year."
Steady-boy lowered his head
so he could speak directly to the squirrel.
"Instead, Rupert, now the farmer thinks that Mrs. Mischief can't do
her job and is keeping her in the house while this other cat guards the
grain. I'll tell you, Butch is not a
very friendly cat. He's very mean
too!"
"You don't have to tell
me, Steady-boy," Rupert said as he licked at his sore shoulder. "If I had known there was a new cat in
the loft, I never would have taken the chance."
"You shouldn't have
done it anyway," Laverne said.
"Whether you knew the cat was there or not. That grain was not yours to take," she
scolded.
"I'm sorry,"
Rupert said at last. "I won't do
it again, honest! I wonder what I can
do to make this up to Mrs. Mischief.
She isn't getting old, she was just looking the other way and pretending
she didn't see me taking the corn. But
what am I to do? I don't have enough
nuts to last me through the winter?"
"You could have asked
me to share with you," Steady-boy said.
"The farmer gives me plenty of grain and since I won't be working
hard in the fields through the winter, I can share some with you."
"Me, too," Giselle
said. "I'm so big and you're so
small, you can have a little of mine."
"You can share with me,
also," Porker said. "You
probably won't like the vegetables Farmer Lovely gives me, but there are always
some corn and oats added. I won't mind
sharing with you."
"See, Rupert?"
Steady-boy said. "Friends can
always be counted on to share when there is need. You are a friend of ours, you know?"
"Gee, thanks,
fellows," Rupert said. "But
I'm sure gonna miss Mrs. Mischief now that she's gone."
"Don't you worry about
her," Solomon said as he strutted up and down the floor of the barn. "Butch isn't much of a friend to
anybody here on the Lovely Farm, and I don't imagine he will be staying much
longer."
Solomon was right, too. Late that night there was a fearful noise in
the hen house. Sunrise began crowing
even though it was not yet midnight.
Bluster the Dog came running and was barking and snarling at the door to
the hen house when Farmer Lovely came out of the house. The farmer carried a kerosene lantern in one
hand and a double-barreled shotgun in the other.
Mrs. Mischief had done such
a good job keeping the rats and mice away from the barn that Butch hadn't had
anything to eat for days. When Butch
decided to raid the hen house for dinner, Sunrise jumped on his back and began
pecking him and gouging him with his sharp rooster talons. Then Bluster came to join in and kept Butch
from running away until the farmer could see what was going on.
In no time at all, Farmer
Lovely had scooped up the cat and taken him in the house, while Bluster
followed and kept barking and leaping trying to get at Butch. A few moments later Farmer Lovely brought
Mrs. Mischief out to the barn where she could resume her usual night patrol in
the loft.
Fortunately, none of the
hens had been seriously hurt. They were
frightened more than anything else and probably would not produce many eggs for
the next few days.
"Oh, Mrs.
Mischief!" Rupert said. "I'm
so happy that you are back with us now.
All of us were missing you, honest!"
"Thank you,
Rupert," the calico cat purred.
"I'm glad to be back with my friends too. Being inside the house with the people is a nice place to visit
for a while, but it is much too warm in there for me with my fur coat. And, I felt guilty not doing my share of the
work by keeping the rats and mice away from the grain. So I'm very glad to be back out here with my
friends."
"Well, Rupert,"
Steady-boy said. "Don't you have
anything more to say to Mrs. Mischief?"
"Yes, I guess I
do," Rupert said. He stammered a
little for he was embarrassed by what he had to do.
"It was me who took the
corn, Mrs. Mischief. Because of me
Farmer Lovely kept you in the house and brought that other cat here. I'm very sorry for what I did, and I won't
take any more corn. Steady-boy and
Giselle and Porker have each offered to share with me through this winter, so I
won't be getting you in trouble any more."
"Well, I'm glad of
that, Rupert. I saw you every time you
came into the loft at night, I only pretended not to see you even though I knew
it was my job to protect the grain, so I'm partly to blame also."
"No, it was all my
fault, Mrs. Mischief," Rupert admitted.
"If I had asked my friends for help, I never would have had to
steal the farmer's grain. That's what
friends do whenever there is trouble.
Friends pull together to help one another."
"That's right,
Rupert," said Leroy the Llama.
"And if you get too cold sleeping out in your tree, you can come in
here and cuddle up with Laverne and I."
"As long as you don't
mind Leroy's snoring," Laverne said.
"Quit your nagging,
Laverne," Leroy said. "You
know I never snore."
"We'll see,"
Laverne said. "We'll see.