How important is a mouse?
Sometimes you don't know the answers to such questions until suddenly you're forced one day to confront them
On my almost-daily bike ride in a nearby neighborhood (it’s less hilly than where I live), I ride on some relatively quiet house-filled streets. I notice things—one yard may have some new flowers planted by the owner, or a house may suddenly acquire solar panels, or—one of my favorite discoveries—one man lets his two cats sit outside, keeping them from wandering by tying long ropes, one for each cat’s collar, to one of two pillars of the front porch. Mostly the cats sit and watch things go by—squirrels, bunnies, cars, and birds.
One day I realized, having passed the edge of one driveway, that I’d just seen something moving there that was odd. I stopped and turned for another look. Whatever it was, it was so tiny I could barely see it.
There was a manhole on the sidewalk, mostly covered with solid metal. (I read later that these can have different purposes, such as access to sewers or water pipes, or electrical cables, or gas lines or even telecommunications lines.) Something was wiggling on top of the cover. I backed up the bike slowly, just a little, and saw that it was what appeared to be half a tiny mouse—it seemed to be a baby, with tiny little ears and paws, and it was pulling with all its might on something. I didn’t want to scare it, so I backed up just a bit more, and looked more closely. It appeared to be trying to get out of an incredibly small opening in the cover of the manhole, its paws pressing hard on the surface as it tried to push the rest of its body up.
It tried and tried, and then gave up and disappeared underneath, but came up a few second later to try again. And again, and again. I thought I might be able to help it, but given past experiences with baby wild animals, believed I would just scare it to death if I came closer. On one of its disappearances I saw the hole a little more clearly, and it didn’t look completely round. It seemed jagged, as if it wasn’t supposed to be there and it just had formed over time. I wondered also, how did the mouse get in? And if it didn’t get in from outside, where did it come from, and where else could it go if not outside? I didn’t know how deep or crowded or dangerous it might be for the little guy, underneath.
I decided to ride around the block once more, hoping the mouse would succeed. I thought maybe I should call the town’s wild animal control office, but realized that not only would they think I was a little nuts, but also that they might think “mouse” and then think “big rats” and come and put poison or a trap there. The town does already have rat traps on many streets. (Several houses however have yard signs saying they don’t want the rat traps. I believe they think they’re too cruel, but haven’t been able to ask anyone about that.)
I rode back around, and there he was, pulling and pulling. The only way I could leave him was to promise myself I’d call someone, but who? Even if they do think I’m crazy, I thought, maybe I should call the town’s animal office after all, but I’d called them once before, not too long ago, and gotten a rather lukewarm and reluctant response about a rabbit hit by a car. I thought it might still be alive and suffering, but the next day it was still there, and certainly no longer alive. I didn’t think now that I could handle what I thought would again be a negative response. Next I thought I should contact their department of public works, but none of the phone numbers worked, so I couldn’t even leave a message. Reluctantly, I called the only other number I could think of—the town’s non-emergency police number, and said something like this:
“Hi. I ride my bike in the town often, and I just saw this poor little baby mouse—he has a white belly and is so tiny and sweet—and he’s trying so very hard to get out of this manhole cover but can only get halfway out (I gave them the address) and I’m afraid I’ll scare him if I try to help, and I tried to call the DPW but can’t reach them, and well, could you just maybe call them, or someone who maybe could open up the cover and let him out? I know, it’s a mouse and maybe that’s not such a good thing, but he’s so little and struggling so hard. I don’t know what’s under the cover or how dangerous it is for him, and it’s so pathetic, and, well, I just hope you can do something. I’m an animal lover. And thanks. You don’t have to call me back.” (Their message says you can leave a number so they can call you, but that seemed not a good idea, I guess because I kept imagining them laughing at me.).
It bothered me a little less to think, as I did, that they did have a good laugh around the station, but at least I didn’t have to hear it. But maybe they at least went to investigate. I rode by the next day, and saw no signs of the mouse. I now regretted not having left my number, so they could have told me what had happened, but what if they’d done nothing? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But I did wish I could have let the mouse know at least that I tried to help him (or her), and I still wish that were so.
It won’t surprise too many people, I think, that the incident reminded me of one of the most famous poems of Scottish poet, composer, and folksong collector Robert Burns. I’ve only put two of the eight stanzas here, and they’re in the original Scottish dialect.
You can see the entire poem at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse-56d222ab36e33,
and there’s a “translation” of these and the other verses into more recognizable English at https://www.rcsdk12.org/cms/lib/NY01001156/Centricity/Domain/3732/to-a-mouse-translation.pdf. I think though that most readers will be able to get the drift of the poet even without the translation since many words will be familiar.
To a Mouse, On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785
Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickerin brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee
Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
According to the BBC’s “Bitesize” page, the poem tells us something wonderful about Robert Burns:
He feels “remorse at having destroyed the nest of a tiny field mouse with his plough. He apologises to the mouse for his mishap, for the general tyranny of man in nature and reflects mournfully on the role of fate in the life of every creature, including himself.”
Among the poem’s themes, the site adds, is “the heartbreaking futility of planning for the future in an uncertain world,” and the “extreme difficulty of life for poor people and the injustice of a world where they have so little.”
I feel I should now write something here that’s very wise and ties the story to life today, but I have nothing brilliant to offer, except that many of us humans do suffer, as they have, I believe, for ages, when they see others—human or animal—suffering. I hope that kind of empathy continues, and increases, especially in our current environment in which there seem to be so many humans unbothered by the suffering of others, and some even who call for it, or even the deaths of others, in order to gain power and wealth.
NOTES:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43816/to-a-mouse-56d222ab36e33