A mouse has a little beating heart

Don't laugh - a mouse has a little beating heart, that little mouse I let live behind the cupboard was really 'humanly' scared, and it was being stalked by a big beast with a stick and it didn't know why it was chosen to die - it looked up, around, both ways, little paws up, on hind legs, breathing heavily, hunted -

Jack Kerouac, Desolation Angels


I often think of that line from Kerouac -' a mouse has a little beating heart' when I deal with mice. The episode the quotation comes from is when Kerouac is working as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak.

This morning I took another mouse far from the house  to the area beyond the workshop and let it go. Every night when I set the tunnel trap in the kitchen I get at least one, or two, the first before I go to bed; then I re-set the trap.

I take heart in thinking that there must be quite a colony down there now - at least they will find other mice there. They are just small, brown mice. I don't know how they keep getting into the house. They're so small that I've weighted the end of the trap with a one dollar coin taped to the outside, in order for it to tip.

But they always go with a full belly. I lure them in with peanut butter with rolled oats stuck on top.