A MOUSE IN THE BUCKET

Bobby Burns wrote about  a mouse with empathy and real tenderness.

I recently had several encounters with a  little smart mouse and it was very enlightening.
Of course, it was also very annoying and sleep-disturbing.  My friend  Elizabeth came over to celebrate Orthodox Easter.  She brought lots of goodies and I had  also called a  neighbor in Cincinnati who is Russian Orthodox to share Easter  Greetings.

  When she entered, Elizabeth remarked on the  mice traps and poison filled traps lined up  on my kitchen floor. I told her that the mouse often appeared in the daylight. A few minutes later as if on cue I saw the tiny dark form walking slowly along what I called "death row".  

He  stayed there  and even Elizabeth was able to see his strange behavior.   He scampered away when I yelled, but a few minutes later he was  back again.  He would walk right up to the entrance to the white trap and  never enter.  It was quite tantalizing for me to watch him  come so close to  his demise and then back away  from it.  My friend commented--"Well you two have  quite a relationship." 

There was some truth in that. I had googled mouse  many times and learned that they have an IQ and can  learn to do tricks and they are as smart as a smart dog. They can figure things out.
Well this one had figured out that that white plastic thing with the alluring dark entrance and the whiff of peanut butter was not a healthy choice.  But yet he could not stay away from it. I would yell and he would scamper back under the nearby radiator cover. But let a  few minutes pass and there he was standing up on his hind legs sometimes and slowly moving and sniffing around that plastic covered trap  pushed against  the baseboard.  My friend  told me to put fresh  peanut butter in the trap "Mice hate stale peanut butter," she pronounced  knowingly.

The next day I went into the kitchen and picked up the trap.  That is when I noticed that the trap had been set off.  I  moved the trigger device and looked into the hole. There against the white interior I could see a long skinny tail.  We threw the trap with its burden into the trash and  wiped and vacuumed where it had been. 

 Later I saw the mouse come out and  walk along the baseboard  looking for the trap his nose pressed to the floor. After a few minutes, he left and I have not seen him  since. 

Now I think I understand his strange behavior to come and sit  by  this  trap.  Would I be going too far to suggest  that he  had seen his brother --perhaps--enter that dark door and never emerge?  He could smell him inside but never reach him.  But he also could not leave--so he risked these day light vigils and now he can  end that.  Do animals mourn?

 I THINK THEY DO. 

Here are some of Burns' thoughts in Scots dialect on a mouse whose winter dwelling he destroyed.