CHAPTER XV

MORE SCREENS

THE rap, rap, rap of a hammer came from under Ruth's window, accompanied by Father's cheerful voice, singing,

"When I was a bachelor I lived by myself,
And all the bread and cheese I got

I put upon the shelf;

The rats and the mice they led me such a life
I had to go to London to buy me a wife."

"What are you doing, Daddy?" asked Ruth, poking her head out of the window. "I thought you had already tacked a wire screen over each cellar window. What are you putting that heavy wire over it for?"

Ruth's question was natural. The cellar window was already covered with fine wire netting, such as had been put on all the windows to keep out the flies and mosquitoes. And yet Father was tacking on some heavy, galvanized-wire netting.

Father looked up and gave a military salute by touching the hammer to his hat brim. "Please ma'am," said he, "I got the wire for the same reason that the fellow in the rhyme went to get a wife— because of the rats and mice. Any able-bodied mouse --and, of course, any rat-could gnaw through a flyscreen without half trying, but I fancy this heavy chicken-wire will be too much for them."

"Why," said Ruth, "I didn't suppose there were many rats and mice around here. I think mice are so cunning. Rats and mice don't really do very much harm, do they?"

"I don't suppose there are so many here in Pleasantville as in places where there are a great many warehouses, grain elevators and big markets where they can find lots of food. Still, there are plenty of them. You know, Ruth, in cities there are easily as many rats and mice as there are people, and in the country, where there are not large numbers of people and where there are grain-fields for the wild field mice to live in, there are about four times as many rats and mice as there are humans. As for their not doing much harm, a rat or mouse will eat or spoil property valued at one-half cent a day."

"Dear me," exclaimed Ruth, "then if there are as many of them as there are people, that would make -let's see, the population of the United States is-"

"Call it roughly one hundred million," said Father. "Then, if each rat costs us half a cent a day, he will cost us how much a year?"

"One-half of 365 days is 1821/2. That would be $1.82 for each rat or mouse. And if there are a hundred million of them, they would cost us every year $182,000,000!" cried Ruth, in horrified tones. "Oh, I must have multiplied wrong. Surely it can't be such a frightful amount as that."

"No, your multiplication was all right, Ruthie. You see rats raise as many as five families a year and there are usually about eight baby rats in each

family. If they did not have so many enemies to kill them off, we should fare as badly as the people of Hamlin did. You remember the Pied Piper of

$82,000,000

Hamlin, don't you, and how he saved the city from the rats and mice that were ruining it?"

"Oh, yes," said Ruth, "the poem is in my reader. He played on a magic pipe and the

rats and mice followed him and were drowned in the river."

"The river Weser in the poem must have been a wide one," said Father, "for rats are good swimmers. They can swim half a mile. There's another poem that you must have read, I think. It tells about a wicked Bishop Hatto who took refuge in a high tower in the river Rhine, but the rats and mice swam across the river and ate him up.

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"For they have swum over the river so deep,
And they have climbed the shores so steep;
And up the tower their way is bent,

To do the work for which they were sent.'

"Goodness!" cried Ruth. "It makes my blood run cold. I like the story of Dick Whittington's cat, that ate the mice and rats, better. But, Daddy, you said rats and mice had lots of enemies. Of course, cats are enemies to them, but what other enemies have they?"

"Well, some dogs are good ratters, and owls, hawks and foxes all are very valuable in destroying rats and mice. I can't think why we persist in killing the rats' enemies and giving the rats and mice free board and lodging. The ancient Egyptians were wiser. You know, Egypt used to be called the granary of the world, because she raised such quantities of grain. The Egyptians knew that the cats were enemies of the mice and rats that would destroy their crops, so they protected and cared for the cats. The fact is that they even declared the