The Three Bears of Porcupine Ridge

by Jean M. Thompson

So darker and darker grew the shop, and very silent, until finally a rasp, rasping sound came from behind the barrel. The cat crept stealthily across the floor on velvet-padded feet, and crouched expectantly. But the sly old rat did not come out just then; in fact he appeared to be moving something beneath the floor, dragging it noisily about. So the cat waited patiently; she meant to have the rat if she waited there all night.

“Pat, pat, pat,” sounded a scurry of footsteps; it was the rat. He was getting ready to come out of his hole, and pussy gathered herself together for a quick leap. Boldly the old rat came forth, just as he had done night after night for weeks. A swift flash, and the cat had landed upon his back. “Squeak, squeak,” shrilled the rat angrily, burying its sharp teeth in the cat’s nose, and causing her to loose her hold a second. Then, before she could recover herself, the old brown rat was off and away. She covered his retreat toward the barrel, but the rat flew in another direction, up over the high counters, with pussy after him. In and out among the jars of pickled limes, lollipops and gum-drops he doubled, the cat following, always managing to head him off when he made for the barrel. Over among the goldfish globes into the shop-window he scratched his way, and finally tried to hide behind a great glass jar. No use; the cat’s great, yellow eyes, blazing like automobile lamps, found him. Right over the cage of white mice leaped the rat in a perfect frenzy. Just then Fluff and Muff, almost frightened out of their wits at the dreadful commotion in their window, came out of their nest, and Fluff instantly began to whirl madly about in the creaking wheel, and pussy in her eagerness and haste mistook the moving wheel for the rat, and sprang with all her weight upon the wire cage, giving the old rat just the right chance to slip off to his retreat behind the barrel.

Topsy-turvy turned the wire cage; the wire door was wrenched off its hinges, and instead of the old brown rat which the cat expected to grab, she found herself with a little bit of a white mouse in her claws. What she did with Muff I am not quite certain; at any rate Fluff managed to escape, and off he tore across the shop floor, sliding in and out between boxes and barrels, half mad with fear, his little heart beating so when he paused that it shook his whole body. Finally he reached a green door; there was a little crack beneath the door, and Fluff decided to squeeze through. He came to a long dark passage next, then another door slightly ajar, and he entered the kitchen. The room was so large, silent and lonely that he was afraid; to his joy, he spied a little hole close beside the hearth and instantly slipped into it. To his surprise it was not so small as it had at first appeared to be, but it led in to a narrow, musty-smelling passage, which seemed to be very long, for he could not even see the end of it. The white mouse sat up on his little haunches, peering curiously about him, and even taking time to comb out his white silken whiskers, for strangely enough he felt very safe, somehow. The strange, musky odor was quite familiar to him; he sniffed at it with trembly pink nose. He recognized the trail of his kindred in that scent, and knew that the smooth runway had been worn by the travel of many pattering feet. Perhaps even Muff, his little mate, had passed over the trail.

Off scurried the white mouse at this delicious thought; he determined to follow the new trail to its very end. Suddenly a stranger, a little brown mouse, poked its head inquisitively out of a side track, took just one brief look at the white mouse, and instantly whisked out of sight. Fluff could hear her shrill squeaks of consternation and fear growing fainter and fainter as she hurried away. He stood stock-still waiting; perhaps she would return; but she never did. Instead, she went squeaking along the trail telling, in mouse language, no doubt, of the ghostly thing which she had met on her way to the kitchen larder.

This particular track, as it happened, was quite a favorite one and led for a long distance back of the wainscot. It had many turnings and secret passageways; even into the attic and down into the cellar it led. The rats often cantered over it at night with burdens of eggs or apples which they filched from the cellar; no wonder then the track was well-worn and smooth with the passing of so many pattering feet.

The white mouse, although he had never before seen a brown mouse, was anxious to make the acquaintance of the one he had met; perhaps she could show him the way to find Muff, whom he was beginning to miss terribly. So he boldly took the same road which the brown mouse had taken. He had not gone very far, however, before he heard a dragging sound ahead of him, and right in his path he saw a great gray rat dragging a large nubbin of corn. The white mouse stood stock-still, too frightened to run; he was so afraid of this monster. He trembled and shook so that his small teeth fairly chattered together. But he need not have been so very frightened, for the instant that old rat caught sight of the white thing crouching in its path it gave one long, terrified squeak, turning about in its tracks and scuttling madly off, even forgetting all about the corn nubbin in its haste to get away. Away from the ghost-like vision, the like of which it had never before encountered, in the wainscot passageway.

The white mouse gained courage at last, and being very hungry it ate the corn nubbin itself, daintily pulling off each grain of corn, and eating out just the heart of the kernel.

For days and weeks the white mouse roamed through the wainscot solitary and alone, shunned by every rat and mouse in the place, vainly traveling over the secret passageways, always hoping to turn some corner and meet Muff, his lost mate. How he longed for company, but he never could manage to get close enough to a brown mouse to become acquainted. One day he met a little company of very young mice; they halted and stared at him several seconds with their bright, bulging eyes. Fluff even ventured to give a pleading little squeak which meant to reassure them, but it was no use; evidently they too took him for a ghost, for like a flash they were off, and all he saw of them was five vanishing brown tails.

One day the white mouse chanced to discover quite a new runway which he hastened to explore. As he followed it the way seemed not quite so musky as the old trails, and soon he sniffed with delight a whiff of clear, outside air. The bright sunshine which met him as he poked his nose outside the hole almost blinded his little pink eyes, and the soft spring breeze ruffled his white fur coat, but Fluff enjoyed it. Peering warily about he leaped to a beam in the wood-shed, followed it until he had reached a knot-hole which led through the cow shed; from there he scuttled as fast as he could run, right into the old red barn, and diving deep into the hay he lay there hidden until he regained his courage and spent breath.

Now all through the fragrant hay run many secret passages, and as the white mouse entered one of them, ahead of him he saw a familiar figure; it was a mouse, and as she turned toward him, he caught a glimpse of white fur, and, strangely enough, the little mouse did not turn and flee away from him in terror, as the house mice had done. Fluff saw that she wore a coat of light brown fur, but that her breast was as white as his own fur coat, as were also her silken whiskers. At first he had thought it might be his lost mate, but as he came closer he saw that the stranger had large, bat-like ears, and bright, beady brown eyes; not pink ones, like his mate’s.