Bless This Mouse

Dear Amazon Readers:

Here is how it started. Out of the corner of my eye, while I was hard at work one day, I saw something move. A little scurrying motion. It wasn’t my dog, Alfie, who was curled up and snoozing by my feet. But I was quite certain I had seen something. I went to look, and found a mouse.

Though I am not the kind of timid female who shrieks "Eeek!" and jumps up into a chair, I am not fond of mice. They come in from the meadows around my Maine farmhouse when the weather gets cold. They move stuff around—once I found French lentils in my ski boots. They make little nests of shredded cashmere sweaters. They gnaw their way into my pantry. I have been known to set traps for them and then to dispose of them—and their traps—without a shred of remorse.

But this mouse was quite different. He had very large eyes and ears. They made him appear—well, cute. He seemed, actually, to have a personality, and he was completely unafraid of me. Finally, not knowing exactly how to behave with such a creature, I picked him up, talked to him a bit about how he would be happier living outdoors, and then I carried him out to my garden and gently placed him on the ground beside the birdbath. I told him that I hoped he would have a pleasant summer. Alfie took one last close-up look at him and lost interest. Then I went back into the house and to my unfinished manuscript.

But I found myself suddenly bored by my fictional humans. I could only think about mice. I started typing. I created a mouse, and then another, and another. I gave them names and personalities and problems and relationships, and before I knew it I had written an entire book about them. I called it Bless This Mouse.

(But when I went out to tell him about it, he was gone.)