“The Little Mouse That Could”
This is the story of my little mouse that I raised. It started in an unusual way & stayed unusual the whole time. So here goes: The story of Stuart Nipper.
Stuart wasn’t your usual mouse by no means. He was special in so many ways. While heading out to eat one day, I happened to see this white thing streak across my neighbor’s yard. My curiosity was getting the best of me, so I stopped to see what it was. To my surprise, it was a little mouse. It didn’t try to run from me so I knew that it must be someone’s pet. My neighbors weren’t home so I put him in a can under their garage while I went out to eat. When I came back, I went and got him then knocked on the neighbor’s door to see if he belonged to them. The only person there was a friend of the neighbor, and he wasn’t sure if he was theirs; but he said that they did have some to feed their snake. I refused to see him be fed to a snake. So I took him with me to set him free. After I set him free, the neighbors’ bulldog, DeDe, grabbed him right up and started trying to kill him. So, I rushed right over and got him out of the dogs’ mouth. Stuart was not well, even unconscious. I took him to the house to try to nurse him back to health. It seemed like all hope was gone, and then it came to me of what I should do. I turned him over on his back, rubbed his belly, and blew air in his face. Then you guessed it, Stuart started becoming conscious again! I was so happy that I decided to keep him as my pet and raise him.
Stuart became a part of my family. My husband, my child and his family, my mother, everyone was so crazy over Stuart. My mother loved him; so much she would let him run around her neck. She really enjoyed his company. Stuart had his own little house but he was left out most of the time, when we were home. We would set him on the fireplace where I had a little birdhouse that he liked to hide in. Stuart hardly ever got off the fireplace; but every once in a while he would and he would go wandering. I know you will think I’m crazy but all my husband had to do was call his name and you would see him come out from where he was hiding. His voice is the only one he would respond to. When he would come, like any other animal, he would get in trouble for getting down from the fireplace. I would get a toothpick and give him a little pop and a little talking to. Stuart loved to bath. I always bathed him with a q-tip then I would blow dry him off so he wouldn’t get sick. Quite often my husband or I would take him to the back deck to get some sun. H would stay on our shoulders and when we would go outside he would get down and crawl around on the deck then come back and get on our shoulder again. He knew where his bread was buttered! Inside!
Stuart once took a trip with us to Branson Missouri. We took a shoe box and made it real comfy for him to stay in the motel, but needless to say, we spoiled him. He went almost everywhere we went on that trip. On the trip there, he mostly road on the dash of the car, but when we got there I carried him in my coat pocket everywhere we went.
Then one day, I woke up to find that Stuart was very sick. He was just lying around so I knew something was wrong. I went over and picked him up and he was cold. I knew that he was dieing because the life expectancy of a mouse is one year and I was blessed to have had had him for two years. I picked him up and held him while he was passing, crying the whole time. I was devastated. A part of my life was gone. So I called my husband to ask him what I should do, since I couldn’t bear to bury him. He told me to just lay a towel over his house and he would handle it. So when my husband got home, he did just that. Dug a nice burial plot and place him and his house inside and covered it back up, and that my friend, was the end of Stuart Nipper.
Sincerely,
Betty Nipper
