My brother, John, and I were the youngest of seven, separated by about eighteen months from each other and ten years from our nearest sibling.  Living in rural Louisiana in the late 1940’s and early ‘50’s limited outside playmates.  John and I spent most days together, exploring our world and making our own fun.  My dad was a railroad engineer.  Still, we had cows, horses, jennies and jacks, dogs, cats, as well as chickens, turkeys, and the occasional pig.  Daddy planted a garden, and Mama tended it, a typical life in the country community of our day.  

       Daddy was not involved in our day-to-day activities. He was a serious man, not given to the levity of life and I thought of him as a part of another, more ancient, world. He didn't laugh a lot or play jokes, and we knew children were to be seen and not heard. Life weighed heavily in the air when Daddy stood in the room, but John and I never let his somberness infringe on our ability to have fun. Sometimes Daddy increased our fun by virtue of his presence, and such was the case with our flying squirrels. 

Late February is still pretty cool, but not cold in Louisiana. Baby owls fledge, young squirrels emerge from their nests, and tiny rabbits are glimpsed scampering in the weeds. John and I were blessed with the freedom to wander and experience nature.  Bugs, terrapins, frogs, snakes and occasionally a bunny came home with us at day’s end.  Once we even brought in an opossum. Mama pretty much ignored our new-found pets until it was time for us to come in at night.  Nightfall meant freedom for the pet-of-the-day, and in our minds, its opportunity to return to its own family.  Life in our Tioga, Louisiana, household did not include concern that we might be bitten or catch some disease from wild animal encounters.  

On this particular Saturday, John and I were up early and, by seven o'clock, we were in “the pines,” a little wooded area on the corner of our property. Being the big sister at about eight or nine years old, I led the way in exploring to see what we could see as we crept under the big trees.  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw something fly down from one branch to another.  I punched John and pointed to the tree.  And sure enough, another one glided down. We tiptoed a little closer to get a better look at two young flying squirrels, maybe better or more appropriately known as Sugar Gliders, that now lay inert on a low branch. 

These flying squirrels, being nocturnal, were settled in for the day.  I volunteered to sit in the woods and watch our prey while John went home to get some sort of container for our soon-to-be new pets.  When he came running across the field in about half an hour, the squirrels hadn't moved and neither had I.  I was lost in a world of fantasy filled with trained squirrels and an admiring crowd watching their performance.  By the time, John reached my side I knew these were animals not to be released at the end of day.  I also knew secrecy and subterfuge would be required if we were to succeed in making them permanent members of our family.  

An empty saltine cracker box would be the home for what we already considered our squirrels, a flimsy container, but sturdy enough to hold these two tiny creatures.  

“Gimme the box, John.  I’ll hold it while you catch the squirrels.”

“What if they bite me?”

“Don’t be a baby!  They are just babies.  They won’t bite.”

“Well, they might scratch.  Besides, where’s their mother?”

“John, are you scared of those tiny babies?”

“I’m not scared. I’m careful.”

John’s voice had that I might cry sound to it, so I backed off quickly.  After all, I didn’t want to touch the squirrels myself. 

“Hey, look, John.  Why don’t you take off your shirt and use it for a shirt-net?”

“What?”

“Here, gimme the box, and take off your shirt.  I’ll show you how you can catch the squirrels.”

John did as asked, and I showed him how to scoop the babies up in his shirt without really even touching them. 

The plan worked, and in seconds, we had two flying squirrels stored in our saltine cracker box along with John's shirt: those squirrels proved to be agile and agitated. 

“Here, John, why don’t you carry the box?  It’ll help you keep warm if you hold it close to your chest.”

We headed straight for the house and talked all the way.  We discussed where we would keep the squirrels, what we would feed them, and our plans for training them. We figured once they were trained, our parents would be so impressed with our new pets that the subject of letting them go would not even be broached.

We slipped through the back door and into John's bedroom. Let me take a minute here to explain the layout of our house as it contributes greatly to the adventure in store. We had a front porch, where we sat on the steps and listened to our parents talk.  Through the front door was the living room, no entryway or foyer or anything of that sort.  To the left was our parents' bedroom. Through that door and to the other side, was my bedroom and to the right of it, a hallway and our bathroom.  John's room was down the hall on the left and a utility room opened on the right.  It was a good-sized room, called the washroom because our washing machine was housed there.  Among other things, it also included a rack that ran the entire length of the room and on which our family's wardrobe hung: coats, Daddy's suit, Mama's Sunday dress, and our everyday clothes. 

One coat was extra-special because it was military issue and had come from my brother, James, who was in the Navy.  According to him, this coat had been certified as safe from the cold down to fifty below. I guess he meant fifty below zero Fahrenheit, but the phrase used was always just fifty below.  He gave it to my mother to wear when she milked the cows on cold mornings.  She never did: the coat weighed about twenty-five pounds, and we lived in Louisiana.  Fifty below was nothing we experienced or even could imagine.  The coat hung proudly there to be admired as some sort of trophy, and oftentimes Daddy would call a visitor’s attention to it.

"I want you to look at this coat. It's certified to fifty below. My son sent me that." 

The visitor would be properly impressed and life went on. 

To continue the three-hundred-sixty degree route through our house, the second door out of the utility room went into the dining room. From there, a large opening into the living room completed the unimpeded circular path through our house. Daddy and Mama might close their bedroom doors sometimes, but we kids were not allowed to close ours. If we did, someone knocked to ask “What's going on in there?”  It was safer and more private to leave the door open. 

John and I sat on the floor of his bedroom--the door wide open--with our two squirrels in the saltine box. We discussed names for our new pets, wondered if they were girl squirrels or boy squirrels, and exactly how one might be able to tell which they were. 

“John, let’s look at them to see if we’ve got girl or boy squirrels.”

“I bet they are a brother and sister, just like us.”

“Maybe.  Then we could call them Olevia and John.”

We dissolved into laughter as we lifted the shirt out of the box.  Although our plan had seemed perfect, the squirrels desire to escape overcame our best efforts. They seemed to fly through the door, across the hall and out of sight. We ran after them, but they disappeared into thin air.  We were distraught, not only at the loss of our pets, but also about the possibility of our parents finding them first. We knew they were not likely to see the value of our new pets and might even be angry at their escape in the house. We moped around all afternoon, looking and watching for the squirrels to come out.   They didn't.

Sundown was bedtime when Daddy was home. Life was serious, and burning electricity to stay up was foolishness. When it got dark, we went to bed. At daybreak, we got up. As evening came on, we worried our lost pets would starve, or worse, eat whatever they could find in the kitchen. 

“What do you think the squirrels usually eat, Olevia?”

“Acorns?  Pinecones? I don’t know.”

“What about chicken-scratch?”

“Hey, I bet they will eat that.”

We headed to the barn to get a two-gallon syrup bucket full of chicken-scratch, still talking about the adventure we were on.

“We can keep this bucket under your bed, John.  I don’t think Mama will find it there.”

“Okay.  How are we going to feed our squirrels?”

“I don’t know.”

That night, we poured a little mound of chicken-scratch in the middle of the utility room in hopes it would be found and eaten. 

Sure enough, the next morning, where we left the grain looked like the remains of something a mouse had been chewing. Mama saw it and was concerned we had mice-in-the-house.  Field mice getting in the house was not news, but at the end of February?  By that time, the weather warmed, and food was ample outside and in the barns. Mice-in-the-house was a December-January problem. She cleaned up what was left of the grain and set a baited mousetrap right there. That night, we unset the trap and poured another small pile of grain. The next morning, the grain was gone, and the trap was no longer set. Mama mentioned it to Daddy. 

"John, I think we might have a couple of mice in the house."

"You need to set a trap."

"I did.  That's what I was telling you.  The trap was sprung this morning, but the bait was still attached.  Something that looked like chicken feed was chewed up all around the trap."

"Probably young mice.  Set two traps, about a foot apart.  That'll catch 'em."

The subject was closed for the day, and Mama used the two-trap approach that night.  We followed our same routine for the next several nights: unset the traps and put out the grain. We were thinking about how we might catch our pets before they came to harm, but nothing was coming to mind, especially since they only crossed our minds near bedtime. 

Then one night, just as it was getting good and dark and we were settled in bed, something that sounded like a herd of little mice running brought the peaceful night to an end. We heard them coming through the dining room, through the living room and on into Mama's and Daddy's room. Daddy leaped from bed in his long johns and yelled.

"Mary, a bunch of rats just ran through this room."

Mama didn't make much of an effort to reply, but my ears and John's perked up.  We heard them coming again.   Daddy jumped up and turned on the lights.  The flying squirrels disappeared. 

The next night, a similar experience occurred. Daddy screamed again. 

"`Mary, those are the biggest rats I've ever seen, and there are two of them." 

Daddy was now involved in the rat-killing contest. The action he took first was to tell Mama she didn't know how to catch a rat, but he was going to teach her. He went to Merritt's General Store and brought home five huge rattraps, about ten inches long and four inches wide. Until that day, I had never seen a rattrap of those dimensions, and I don't think I've seen one since.  

At bedtime, he lined the doorway between my room and his room with rattraps.  We were required to look at his handiwork while he pointed out that a man has to think in order to outsmart an animal. He related stories about how rats the size of those in our house could chew off an arm while we slept, they might kill a dog and even carry all sorts of dread diseases. He said he had been foolish to leave this problem up to Mama, but now everything was going to be okay because he was in charge.  Those rats would die before morning.

My heart was in my throat as I considered the fate of our beautiful baby squirrels. John and I were sad and feeling responsible for their fate.  He even suggested that we fess up.

“Let’s just tell ‘em they aint rats.”

“No. We’ll just get in trouble if we do that, and I don’t think Daddy is going to care what they are.”

“Well, we can’t let them die.”

“Let’s pray for them.”

We climbed in bed, prayed and waited.  We were still awake when we heard the rumble of our squirrels making their nightly run.  I'm not sure any human has ever enjoyed the intensity of the prayers offered for those two sugar gliders. John and I begged God to save them, and it is possible Daddy prayed as potently for their capture. I think Mama leaned in our direction because she was a little put out with Daddy's big speech including her incompetence at rat killing. 

When the squirrels came to the traps, John and I held our collective breath as they sailed over them like a horse jumping a fence.  Daddy jumped out of bed and ran for a broom. By the time he had one, the squirrels had disappeared, and all was quiet except for a few giggles coming from John and me. We didn't forget to say “Thank you, God” because our problem wasn't solved, just postponed, and we knew it. 

The next night, the traps were set again and, this time, Daddy got into bed with a broom and a flashlight under the covers next to him. We waited, prayed, and about eight or so, a rumble came. John and I pumped up the prayers, and Daddy eased up on the side of his bed, the flashlight in hand and the broom lifted.  The squirrels raced by and over the traps, and Daddy didn't move a muscle. He waited for their next turn through. As they approached his door, he turned on the flashlight, and for just a moment, their beady little eyes met his before he jumped up with the broom.  They moved like greased lightening with Daddy right behind them, in his long johns, slamming the broom to the floor, shining the flashlight and stepping on the rattraps. John and I could not contain our giggles as the squirrels disappeared. Daddy was nonplussed to say the least. 

"That's it, Mary. I'm getting’ some rat poison tomorrow." 

Mama protested because she did not like rat poison around us kids, the dogs, the chickens, etc. but her protests fell on deaf ears. 

"Mary, I'm telling you those rats are more dangerous than any rat poison.  We've got to get rid of them."

John and I didn't sleep much that night. To the squirrels' good fortune, it was a weekend, and we could devote the next couple of days to solving our problem. At first light Saturday, we were up talking, worrying, and planning when we realized the squirrels always disappeared in the utility room where there were only so many places to hide. We looked under the washing machine, under a couple boxes, among cleaning materials, even under the mattress on the cot, and nothing, not even any evidence that the squirrels had ever been there. As a last resort, we considered the clothes hanging on the long rack.  The end with our everyday stuff was disturbed on a regular basis, but the other end held the items less used.  We started there, where the Antarctic coat hung. Lo and behold, those two squirrels were in a pocket of that coat, quiet, asleep and resting up for the night's run. 

John and I closed the pocket, took the coat and headed outside. We released the squirrels before we cleaned out the pocket the best we could and re-hung the coat. That night, we didn't put out any grain, skipped the evening prayers and waited for any show Daddy might have in store. He put out rat poison around the squirrel feeding area, set his traps and went to bed with the broom and flashlight nestled next to him. Nothing happened. He did the same thing the next night and the next night and probably for about week.  Finally the traps disappeared, the rat poison was no longer put out, the broom stayed in the closet and the flashlight went back in the utility room. 

My dad told this story a hundred times or more, but his telling had quite a different ending than mine. He told about the time the largest rats he had ever seen infested our house, and how he proved rats understand what people say. His story always ended the same. 

"If you want to use rat poison, be sure to whisper or don't mention it at all because I know those rats heard me and left the house that very night."