Pocket Mouse

Caleb lifted a splitting axe high above his head and brought it down with considerable force into the top of a piece of cherry firewood. The piece of wood split right down the middle as the two halves landed on either side of the splitting block. Scott grabbed one half and place it back on the block and stood back just in time for Caleb to swing again. The cherry quarters separated more easily than the halves and Scott got the other half set up for his older brother.
 

Cutting and splitting firewood was a year-round endeavor but the task warranted a certain level of urgency in the autumn with winter right around the corner. The Henning farmhouse was heated with natural gas from the oil well on the property but the family found that it was prudent to prepare for the inevitable gas outages by stocking up on firewood for the wood furnace in the basement. At one point, Dale had even rigged up a homemade range boiler that would heat water with heat from the wood furnace because the regular water heater was also powered by gas.

Caleb and Scott liked splitting firewood. It gave them an opportunity to put their growing strength on display and provided a much needed outlet for the sibling rivalry that constantly simmered just below the surface. They took turns splitting making sure to point out how many strikes it took to get through a piece and pointing out why their piece was harder than the other’s because of knots or y’s. 

“Hey, Caleb,” Kelsey called from the house’s wrap-around porch. “Dad wants you to help him with something in the shop.”

“Okay,” Caleb responded. “I’m on my way.”

He shrugged his shoulders at his younger brother as he handed the red handled splitting axe to Scott. 

“I guess you’re on your own,” he smiled. “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

“No promises,” Scott smiled back.

Scott stacked all the wood that had been split on the growing pile on the edge off the grassy triangle where they were working. Stacking firewood in a stable stack was a real art. The ends of the stack had to be stacked in a way that would contain the rest of the pile. The layers on the ends were stacked one layer on top of the other with the orientation of the pieces shifting ninety degrees every layer. In order to do this well, the stacker had to be very particular about which pieces he chose because the pieces had to be very similar in size. Otherwise, the ends would be unstable and that would make the entire stack more likely to topple.

Once Scott cleared his workspace, he got to work splitting. Scott let his mind wander as he did his work. he rarely managed to stay completely focused on the task before him. That’s not to say that he couldn’t get his work done. Sometimes it just took a little longer and often, to the casual observer, he looked quite silly while he worked. He often talked to himself and made wild gestures as he acted out his imaginative adventures. Luckily, splitting wood didn’t leave much room for elaborate hand motions, so his mindful wanderings manifested primarily in a verbal manner.

After he had been splitting for a while, he grabbed a piece of wood to put on his splitting block and was distracted by movement he perceived out of the corner of his eye. Whatever imaginary adventure he was on was quickly back-burnered as he turned his attention to whatever had caught his eye in the crevasses of the unsplit log pile. He moved a couple pieces of wood and saw movement again, but only for a second or two. 

“I hope it’s not a snake,” he muttered to himself. “I’m going to be disappointed if I dig through this pile just to find a snake.”

Scott had been the type of kid to catch and keep critters his whole life. However, his interests had been pretty much limited to grasshoppers and crickets with the occasional salamander or newt. He had never found snakes to be of much interest. He moved a couple more pieces of wood and caught movement out of the corner of his eye one more time with just enough time to react. He shot his hand out and his fingers closed gently around the furry little body of a frightened field mouse. 

Scott, being careful not to hold the small rodent too tightly, gazed upon his most recent acquisition. The small mouse was entirely encased in the young man’s hand with the exception of its head. Its nose twitched nervously as jerked its head from side to side as if it was taking stock of the situation in which it had landed. Scott gently caressed the little creature with his forefinger as he tried to decide what to do next. 

He was quite certain that his mother would likely deny the creature entrance in the family home regardless of any terms of residency that Scott might propose. After all, it was generally understood that mice were not welcome in the house. The next option up for consideration was to keep the mouse in some kind of enclosure outside of the house, perhaps in the barn somewhere. However, if his father were to find the mouse, he would likely let it go, and that would be the best-case scenario. Scott’s father had good reason to prefer that mice not take up residence in the barn. 

Scott’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the milk pump kicking on. The milk pump, when engaged, let out a loud droning sound that landed somewhere in the middle of the scale for pitch. It could be heard from a surprising distance away and meant that the children were to report to the barn immediately for their evening chores. The sound would persist until the milking was done. So, unsure of what to do with his new-found companion, Scott place the mouse gently into his spacious jacket pocket and blocked the opening of the pocket with his hand. 

Scott pondered his predicament as he walked towards the barn and was unable to arrive at what he considered to be an acceptable conclusion. He couldn’t keep it in the house because of his mom. He couldn’t keep it in the barn because of his dad. He couldn’t just let it go because he had worked so hard to acquire the little creature, now that he had it, he couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go. That was the funny thing about the situation. The mouse had only been in his possession for a few minutes. Prior to his acquisition of the animal, Scott had not felt that he was missing anything in particular in his life. He had been completely content with his situation. However, now that the mouse was literally within his grasp, he couldn’t see his way clear to let it go despite the impracticalities of keeping it.

 By the time he had gotten to the concrete slab outside the milking parlor, he still hadn’t decided what to do. He hesitated outside the milk house door because he knew that if he went inside, his dad would immediately recognize that something was off about him. So, the young man lingered with the mouse in his pocket and his hand acting as the door to the rodent’s prison. 

At that point, the mouse decided to help Scott by making the boy’s decision more or less reflexive. When Scott had been walking, the mouse had simply lay in the corner of the pocket, unsure of what had been transpiring. Now that the boy was standing still, the mouse decided it was time to explore its options. It began to wander around the small space of its fabric prison and quickly found that there was no immediate route of escape. However, when it came to the area where Scott’s hand was blocking the opening, it apparently came to the conclusion that one of these walls was not like the other. 

He nosed around Scott’s palm (which cause the boy to smile slightly) the then settled on Scott’s index finger. The mouse opened its mouth and bite down hard on the young man’s finger. Scott gasped against the sharp pain in his finger and jerked his hand from his jacket pocket. The mouse, still having a firm grip on Scott’s finger, was propelled rather quickly from the warm yet dark confines of Scott’s jacket pocket and tumbled through the air until it landed in the soft dirt by the watering trough. It rolled a couple times through the dust and scurried quickly into the crevices of the barn’s sandstone foundation.

Scott watched the mouse disappear into one of the larger crack and then turned his attention to his finger. There was a small indent in his skin where the mouse had expressed its opinion, but no blood.

“Well, I guess that answers that question,” Scott muttered to himself. “I think I’m just going to keep that between me and the mouse.”