I got a little uneasy as the rats continued to grow, and to grow, and to grow. However, I reflected that they were not of pet stock. They were common sewer rats, and if they were a good size in the open, why should they not attain to a greater, here in this enclosure where they had not a care in the world, and had plenty of what must have been to them delectable food.
I had been accustomed to think of rats as dirty creatures, and was surprised to find how much they loved water, and with what determination they washed and brushed themselves each day. They were model pets in that respect, but I was disappointed to find that they did not grow tame and come about me. By this time they were enormous fellows, and at night I used to take a lantern and go into the aviary, and sit on a box and watch them. I wanted to love them. They were my pet rats. Why not grow as attached to them as to a dog or a cat? I could not. I would not let myself shudder as they passed to and fro near me, but I wanted to do so. They did not care particularly for me. I could see that in every movement of the big, sleek gray creatures, and they did not trust me. I felt badly to find that they were excavating a tunnel in the earth. I did not see them actually at it. They used to work on their fortifications at night, and every morning there would be a heap of earth piled up, with large stones too heavy for one rat to carry.
My father said that he would have liked immensely to see how they carried out those stones. I thought that this performance implied lack of confidence in me. What were the rats going to do there, and what did they expect me to do, that they deserted their shallow nest and made this underground cave? I did not know but what they had tunneled through to the street, but this fortunately they did not do. When the den was finished, they lined it, and retired to it, and I saw very little of them.
They might have been there to this day, if it had not been for the death of my robin, Dick, that I have already referred to. When I went into the aviary, and found that they had deliberately murdered a bird, when there was an abundance of food for them, I gave up my plan of reforming rats, and decided that as the fathers were, so will the children be, and they had better go back to the street.
The next morning my father went into the aviary with a workman, who carried a pick and shovel. Our two fox-terriers ran after them. Two rats escaped to the outer world, where I imagined them telling wonderful tales to their relatives of a basement where food and drink abounded, and where they had made a wheel spin round and round, and had tried to lead a good, respectable life, and had failed.
The fox-terriers pounced on the other five rats as they ran out from the snug home we found they had made by tunneling into an old French drain built alongside the house. I worried a little, thinking that perhaps they should all have been driven into the street, but have since found out more about rats, and accept the statement of many wise persons, who say that they carry disease germs, and should be exterminated. I would not torture them, but would kill them mercifully and speedily.
This common, grayish rat has had a remarkable history. Starting as far as we know from western China, he became a sailor rat, and has by means of ships gone all over the world, driving the black rat in terror before him.
The gray, or brown rat, as he is often called, will, in favorable situations, increase enormously, producing annually several litters, each of which may contain eight, ten, or even twelve or fourteen young ones.
Some years ago, the number of rats in the slaughter-houses about Paris was so great that as many as two and three thousand would be killed in a single night. However, they have friends. I have heard that in some mines the miners make great pets of rats, and are angry if any visitor brings his dog with him. The rats are the only creatures that willingly stay underground with the men, and beside acting as scavengers, their sharp eyes and ears are ever on the alert for slipping sand, or pebbles falling from the rocky roofs. They hear noises unperceived by the men, and previous to a caving-in, will run for the open air with wild squeals of terror. Small wonder that the miners protect them.
They have also admirers of their intelligence, among whom I am proud to number myself, for why should carnivorous human beings be too hard on rats for killing birds? However, as a family, we decided that the rat episode had been so painful that we could no longer have them about the house. Workmen were called in, and concrete floors were laid in furnace-room, coal-cellars, and storeroom. The poor rats were determined not to be driven out, and if the workmen left the concrete while it was soft, they would dig their way up again. I was not willing to cover the earth in the aviary, and there was no danger of the rats getting in there, unless they tunneled from the other side of the house. This they would be quite capable of doing, if they thought they could get into the aviary in that way, and to this day I never see holes in the earth, or freshly scratched places, without anxiously examining them for traces of my dreaded gray enemies.
After making up my mind that rats were not suitable inhabitants of an aviary, I decided that the next animals to go would be the rabbits; but first, I was to have some further experiences with them. The little girls who had brought me the two white rabbits came to see me shortly after the expulsion of the rats, and with mournful faces informed me that they were about to leave Halifax with their parents.
“And we were going to give you our three dear rabbits,” they said earnestly, “but one died.”
I tried hard to look regretful for this untimely death, and one of the little girls went on to say, “We put this rabbit, Venus, in a basket to bring to you, then we saw the basket heave. We opened it, and there was Venus with froth on her mouth. Now what did she die of? Was it from poison? We had given her some red leaves from the woods, but the other rabbits ate them, and they did not die.”
“Perhaps her sister kicked her,” said the other little girl.
“Anyway, it was a great shock to me,” continued the first one disconsolately. “I howled from ten minutes past three till six—Venus would have had such a good time with you.”
“Well, she is safely over her troubles now,” I remarked, “and I am not particularly anxious to add to my stock of rabbits. I am becoming more interested in birds, and an old man came out the other day bringing me a half-sick rabbit.”
The children at once asked to see this rabbit, and named him Raggylug for me. Then they walked to and fro in the furnace-room, never keeping still a minute, stubbing their toes on the floor, or leaning against the stone wall to talk of an astonishing number of subjects connected with animals, among others, their hatred of vivisection, and their intense hope that there would be immortality for animals.
“There must be animals in heaven,” one of them said earnestly, “for are there not doves around the altar? and there must be cows and bees, if it is a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Then, with an abrupt change, one of them said to me, “You must feel as if you were in heaven, Miss Saunders, when you get into this basement with all your animals.”
In some embarrassment I replied that I did not consider the basement of my father’s house an ideal place. Some day I hoped to have a better home for my birds.
However, I never said very much; for when those children talked, I always wanted to listen. Among all the animal-lovers that I have ever known, I never met with two more exquisitely thoughtful and sympathetic souls than these.
At that time they were absolutely torn with anxiety as to the fate of their two surviving rabbits, which I at last promised to take. They said, “We know they will be safe with you, Miss Saunders. But suppose anything should happen to you.”
I told them over and over again, that if I were prematurely cut off, or had to part from my pets, measures would be taken to provide their rabbits with the best of homes.
One thing they strictly impressed upon me. They did not approve of cremation, and if their rabbits were to die, they must be buried in the ground.
“Our rabbits are so supernatural,” one of them remarked.
To allay their intense anxiety, I promised everything they wished, and later on they brought the rabbits to me, both decorated with blue ribbon, and told me the larger one was Trixy Minerva, and the smaller one Candytuft Mercury. They said that Trixy was a saint, and was aunt to Candytuft, who was a sinner. Then they cut locks of hair from their pets’ heads, took a painful farewell of them, and went away.
In some perplexity I surveyed my rabbit family after they left me. The gentle Raggylug was loping around the aviary. As Trixy bore a good character, I decided to put her in with him. Spotty and Rab would kill Candytuft Mercury if I turned him loose in the furnace-room, so I shut him and his blue ribbon up in a barrel, till I could think his case over.
The next morning I found that Trixy had bitten Raggylug’s ear, and the patient little fellow sat with a guineapig friend kindly licking the sore place for him. I hope it was sympathy, but I really believe that even model guineapigs may occasionally like the taste of blood.
I left Raggylug in the aviary for a further trial, and he soon learned that he must not gallop round at Trixy’s heels. She did not like it.
What was I to do with Candytuft? That was now the burning question. He had to come out of that barrel, anyway. His little owners would be shocked if they should see him in it, so I turned him into the aviary and awaited developments.
They soon came. Delighted with his freedom, he stamped his soft paws on the earth, and bounded to and fro, making an occasional vicious onslaught on poor Raggylug, who hid behind the guineapigs’ barrels.
This would not do. I must try a new combination, so I put Candy out in the furnace-room, and took Spotty in with Trixy. The usually good-natured Spotty flew at Trixy, kicked her, tore out great bunches of her hair, and in much trepidation I had to run and catch the furious Spotty, who was breathing spasmodically, and push the terrified Trixy in a corner to recuperate. She was twice his size, but he had beaten her. Now she would understand how Raggylug felt when she bit his ear.
I had forgotten that rabbits quarreled so much. When I was a girl my elder brother kept sixty of them together in a carriage-house loft, and in looking back, I could not remember hearing of the dreadful fights my few rabbits had had. My curiosity led me to interview him on the subject, and he laughed, and confessed that in his youthful days his loft was the scene of many woolly battles and hair-breadth escapes, when his boy friends brought their rabbits to pit against his.
I had to come back to my rabbit problem. As the days went by I was no nearer its solution. Trixy and Candy both whipped the model Raggylug. Trixy bit him, and Candytuft kicked him. Candytuft also bit Trixy. Rab and Spotty bit and kicked all three. Finally, to give myself a breathing-spell, for I did not propose to spend the rest of my life in the basement, settling rabbit quarrels—they used to bite me too—I put Candy in a box.
The king of terrors, who solves so many problems, came to my rescue. One morning Lizzie ran upstairs and informed me that Spotty was “stiff.”
I hurried down to him and finding him swollen enormously, I rushed castor oil down his throat, and got him into a hot bath. I was too late. He died—surprisingly strong and struggling to the last, though at first he was patient and quiet. Probably the bath was not a good thing. I was puzzled as to the cause of his death, until I found some decayed potatoes that had been put by the furnace to be burned.
We had a post mortem examination, and my supposition was found to be correct. Poor, inoffensive Spotty had been killed by greediness. I knew he had not been hungry, for I always had plenty of food lying about. I believe in giving pet creatures plenty of exercise and an abundance of food. I rarely find that they eat too much.
To my great uneasiness Trixy fell ill after this, and I was obliged to have recourse to my oil bottle. I felt thankful that the children could not see their fresh white beauty with her dejected air and oily, dirty face. This time I evidently did the right thing, for Trixy pulled through.
After I had had these rabbits a few months the time came for my trip to Europe, and I was not surprised to hear that my family would take care of my birds and guineapigs, but utterly refused to have anything to do with the quarrelsome rabbits.
I did not blame them. They had all been witnesses of amusing rabbit fights in which the two combatants would take their station opposite each other, warily watching to see which could get the first jump. The advantage was not to jump highest, but to jump first. The first one in the air as they came down, would give a dreadful kick with his hind legs at his opponent’s body. So heating and so wearing was this form of contest, that in a few seconds the two combatants were completely overcome, and the air was full of kicked-off hair. Retiring to a little distance from each other, they would both lie flat on their stomachs on the cool earth, then, after a time, would rise for another round that I always promptly stopped.
I hope I am not too hard on the pretty creatures, but this particular set I had was very bad. When they had young ones they were worse than ever. A mother rabbit would viciously tear open the side of a baby rabbit belonging to another mother, and I have seen them snap at and try to kill young birds.
Raggylug, the only well-behaved one, was so bitten by Candytuft that he became afflicted by a huge swelling on the back of his head. One of the guineapigs found the niche between the swelling and the top of Raggylug’s head a good resting-place, and it was amusing to see the little creature lying there, quite undisturbed by good, patient Raggy.
I put sulphur ointment on the swelling, but it did not improve; and I was just about to have him killed when, one day as he was sunning himself out in the garden, Candytuft rushed at him and despatched him.
It was almost impossible to keep the rabbits apart. They were as quick as dogs in leaping through open doors, and flying at each other. I made up my mind to scatter my rabbits, and found good homes for them all. I trembled when I thought of what the little girls would say, but I wrote them an apologetic and explanatory letter, and to my relief, they took the affair very philosophically.
I have never kept rabbits since; but if ever I had sufficient room, I would really enjoy having a few pairs of the pretty creatures—separate, not together.