For keen intelligence mouse number two takes the lead. All through the summer months she makes a nest on a high shelf in the cabin. When there is a fire in the stove the heat becomes oppressive in the top of the cabin, and the young mice would perish if it were not for the intelligence of the old mouse.
When I fill the stove with wood the old mouse understands just what will take place. She knows that I am about to kindle a fire, and she rushes to a shelf near the stove and frantically drums the danger-signal. She also does a lot of drumming which I do not understand. She tries to tell me in her dumb language that a fire will destroy her little family. When the mouse finds that I do not heed her appeal, she knows that her family will be destroyed, and can be saved only by her own hasty efforts. The one thing to do is to remove her babies to a place far away from the death-dealing heat. If the young mice are small, in some mysterious way the mother-mouse induces each youngster to cling to a teat, when the whole family is removed in this novel manner to a safe retreat beneath the cabin. It is a comical sight to see the old mouse crawling along a log with eight or ten raw, shapeless things clinging to her like grim death. The hole in the wall that leads outside is small, and the old mouse has a long struggle to get her load safely through. Now and then a young mouse drops off and remains squirming where it chances to fall. The mother invariably returns and gathers in the missing.
When the young mice are half-grown, they are removed in a different manner. They are now too large to be dragged as before. They are also too large to be carried by the neck. The mother overcomes this difficulty by doubling up the young mouse and then grasping it by the crossed legs. The young mouse turns its head inward and holds it in place by biting on to one of its own legs. In this way a young mouse is made up into a round, compact bundle. When the hole in the wall is reached it often happens that the mother cannot push her load through. After several unsuccessful efforts she turns about and backs through the hole, dragging the load after her.
All in all, the white-footed mouse has afforded me much pleasure, but at times it becomes a nuisance. At one time my cabin was haunted by a strange sound. The sound was simple enough, only a sharp click repeated over and over. Sometimes, however, the performance would change to a succession of clicks. For six weeks I vainly tried to solve the mystery. At last the clicking became downright annoying. It would break up my line of thought when writing. It would confuse my mind when reading, and I often jokingly asserted that this mysterious ghostly click, click would send me to the insane asylum.
At last I traced the sound to a shelf where I had placed an empty cigar-box. I investigated, and the mystery was solved. A dozen mice occupied the box as a safe retreat from their enemy, the stoat. Whenever a mouse entered or left the box the cover was raised, and, falling into its place again, made the click that had so annoyed me.
The box-cover was heavy enough to severely pinch a mouse's tail, but the cunning mice had provided for this danger. A hole about the size of a lead-pencil had been gnawed in the side of the box, just below the cover, and afforded a channel for the tail, while it was too small to attract the attention of a stoat.