The Backyard Mouse

It's cold and so dark again. The sun has not come out once since before Tom left on Friday.

So anyway, into the icy air, I stepped outside our door this morning, as usual, to walk to our backyard to fill the birdfeeders. While filling the first, I spied something on the ground move, so with the bag of birdseed in my hand, I stopped, still, and tried to see whatever I'd glimpsed.

It was a mouse, a darling little brown guy whose eyes looked straight up into mine. Then he stood up, shivering, with little hands clasped together as though he were begging me for the birdseed.

Oh my goodness. That tiny mouse melted my heart and made it sad. The poor, shivering thing! We stared at each other a few seconds and then, although I knew it would scare him, I reached inside the bag and scattered bird seed all over the ground for him, rather than just inside the feeders. He scampered away.

And then oh dear. I so wanted to keep pet mice again! It was his eyes, those trusting, pleading eyes that all my other mice used to have.

Though as I walked back through the frigidness, I repeated under my breath, "Just say no to mice. Just say no to mice. Just say NO to MICE!"

But oh wow, that little guy scampered away with my heart today.



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