Brown Mouse

The mouse was caught in hole when I found it. Mom warned me not to pick it up or try to play with it. I didn’t listen and promptly stuck my hand in the hole to grab it.

The mouse, defending itself, bit me several times. Mom trapped it in a glass jar and I was taken to Seaside Hospital to get checked out for the possibility of rabies.

This was the second time I had done such a thing. I had also been bitten a couple years earlier while living on Mather AFB shortly before Adam was born. Even then I didn’t listen when I was told not too touch.

Around the same time as my second visit to the hospital, my Uncle Luke had me memorize an old traditional cowboy poem called, “The Little Brown Mouse.” Neither Mom nor Luke’s wife, my Aunt Evelyn were too happy with him when he would ask me to recite it to others.

The liquor was spilt on the barroom floor
And the bar was closed for the night
And the little brown mouse came out of his house
And sat in the pale moon light

He lapped up the liquor from the barroom floor
And back on his haunches he sat
And all night long you could hear him roar
Bring on the G-d d—-d cat!