Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

     Mr. Jessie Laverty, of East Pennaboro, living near Booser’s Mill, was lately very much annoyed by rats, which carried off his eggs, ate the corn in his crib, and then invaded his grainary and commenced destroying a bin of wheat. Mr. Laverty, on examination, found but one place where the rats got in. He thereupon resolved to kill the rats by an artifice well worthy of the cause. He strewed corn meal liberally on the floor of the granary, and about one hour later he nailed the hole shut; he then called his dog [a Spanish terrier,] and, armed with a club, went forth to battle. Now the door of the granary is fastened by a long wooden latch, extending full across the door, and can only be opened from the outside, and Mr. Laverty, on entering the granary, drew the door shut, and heard the latch fall. He then thought the enemy was his, but this was an error, for the rats were more numerous than he expected, and finding no way to escape, attacked both Mr. Laverty and his dog with great fury. Mr. Laverty laid on his blows hard and fast, and one blow aimed at a rat, unfortunately hit the dog on the head, and killed him. Mr. Laverty, being thus deprived of his faithful dog, would have fled, but could not. He then commanced calling for help; the rats meanwhile kept skirmishing around his legs, ran up his body, bit his hands, and one, bolder than the rest, bit his nose. It was impossible to say what the result of this unequal contest would have been, had not a passing beighbor, attracted by the noise and cries, gone to the relief of Mr. Laverty, who presented a shocking spectacle, his face and hands bloody, and his clothes torn into shreds. Mr. Laverty being washed and rehabilitated, sat down to reflect, when he luckily hit on a better plan of warfare. He went and borrowed twelve cats, which with his own made fifteen; these he, in the evening, shut up in his granary with the rats, and the next morning he found, on examination, ten dead cats, one blind one, and two with one eye apiece. The remaining two were unhurt, and by actual count he found 119 dead rats; of the dead dog there was nothing left but the bones and hair, the rats doubtless having eaten him, while Mr. Laverty was hunting cats.-Carlisle [Penn] Harold.