When Tiny had acquired full possession, he proved to be a "chip of the old block." His motto, "No trespass," was impartially enforced. He raced his brother, sisters, father, mother, as well as strangers, out of the dooryard, and fiercely attacked any squirrel that did not depart after the first warning. It was laughable to see Bismarck, the grizzled old warrior, run as if for life when caught trespassing by Tiny. When Tiny approaches through the tree-tops and finds a Squirrel in the dooryard, he stops and sounds his war-cry. This cry is long drawn out, and is something like the buzzing of an old wooden clock when running down and striking the hours. After this warning, he makes a rush for the interloper, and if he catches him the fur flies.
Tiny had a lively experience with a wharf-rat. The rat was a monster. What caused him to take to the woods is a mystery. Probably he was a rat Christopher Columbus, and had started out to discover a new world.
When he found my dooryard he seemed satisfied. From a rat's standpoint it proved to be "a land flowing with milk and honey."
Wheat, corn, meat, bird-seeds, with no bloodthirsty human being to make life miserable. After two days of feasting the big fellow disappeared, to appear again three days later with a mate. Doubtless the sly old rogue thought that he was able to support a family on the fortune he had discovered in the woods.
I trapped the small rat, but found the big one too crafty to enter a trap.
At first the rat did his foraging in the night-time, so Tiny had no chance to make his acquaintance. Later he became bold enough to feed in the daytime, which, in the end, brought him in contact with Tiny. I was talking to some visitors from one of the big summer hotels, telling them the history of the rat, while he was eating from a loaf of bread in the dooryard, when I heard Tiny's war-cry. I told my visitors to look out for a hot time. Tiny ran out on a limb about six feet above the rat, and told him in vigorous squirrel language that he was a thief and a robber. The rat looked up, wondering what the angry little animal could be, that was talking in an unknown tongue, and pounding the pine-limb with his hind feet. It never entered his head to be afraid of such an insignificant foe. Tiny ran down the tree-trunk, landing on the ground not four feet from the rat. The latter stood on his hind feet and squealed a warning.
A lady visitor urged me to drive the rat away. "Rats are great fighters," said she. "The poor little squirrel will be killed." I offered to bet on the squirrel, but before she could answer, the fight was on. Tiny caught the rat by the neck. For a few seconds all that could be seen was something brown whirling in a cloud of pine-needles. The rat soon found that his little foe was a cyclonic fighter, and he made desperate efforts to escape. He dragged Tiny to a stone wall, leaving a trail of blood behind. When he entered the wall, Tiny let go and returned to the bread and coolly proceeded to eat his dinner, none the worse for his fierce battle.
The rat did not return. He either died from the effects of Tiny's savage bites, or, if he survived, left in disgust.