Henry Finds a Home

Henry Finds a Home

Henry was running just as fast as his little mouse legs could take him. He wasn’t running from anything nor to anything, just running. He was in his most favorite place in the world, the little woods behind his home in the stone wall at Rainbow Farm. No one knew why it was called Rainbow farm but Old Man Conway who lived on the corner of the stone wall had said that was what it was called. The sign and even the post that the sign hung on was long gone but he insisted that was the name. Old Man Conway was the oldest mouse that anyone knew, kind of cranky sometimes means but very wise. He made his own medicines in fact Henry had met him when he was a young mouse and he and his brothers and sisters had all come down with croup. Old Man Conway just showed up with some concoction he had made and started spooning it to the all the sick ones in the house, by the next day all the children’s fevers had broken.

It was early fall and for the first time in Henry’s life he didn’t have to go to school. He found the experience of doing exactly what he wanted to be exhilarating. It was a small wood with mostly very large oak trees with a few pine trees and some small birch as it was not a very large wood and was situated on the back piece of Rainbow Farm. All manner of woodland animals lived there, squirrels, both grey and red (Henry always thought Mr. Gray Squirrel was the nicest squirrel he’d ever met). There were possums, raccoon, skunks, bobcat, deer and fisher cat, all kinds of different birds, as well as rabbits and chipmunks. Their homes were in the trees, dug in the ground, hidden in deep thickets all around the woods. The trees were pretty far apart and had large ferns all underneath them. Henry stopped running and rested under one for a bit. His chest was heaving up and down from running so fast and he was sweating. Henry was a tall mouse with very dark nearly black fur. He had a round jolly face that usually wore a smile. His eyebrows were rather long and bushy which tended to make him look older than he really was. He was generally pretty good natured and was a middle child of a very large mouse family. Henry’s tummy started to rumbling and he decided it was about time to head for home for dinner. Up he leapt and started running at not so fast a pace this time to get back home


Henry was quite comfortable at home. He had his own room which was pretty difficult to do since he had SO many brothers and sisters, his father had built it for him years ago and he had managed to keep it to himself all these years somehow. He had a four poster bed that he often pretended was a fort, when it was very cold in the winter he would put blankets over the whole thing to keep himself warm. He had found it one day very close to the stone wall where one of the children had been playing and dragged it. Under his pillow he kept his blanket, but he didn’t’ let most people know that he still had it, he would cuddle with it when he went to bed, he called it Ninya and they were the bestest of friends. He had gathered and made some nice things for his room. There was the stump chair he had dragged home when his friend Gary had decided he didn’t want it for his house anymore. He had made a desk out of and he even had a store of his own food under his bed. He was good at foraging and spent most of his days outside gathering food and other necessities for the family. His father had taught him well how to avoid the hawk that lived on the farm, he knew how to get into the chicken house to get some chicken food without being seen by the chickens and the people who lived in the house had never noticed him at all. He would run from leaf to leaf, hide under stones, behind stumps and run quite quickly in between his little hiding place. All farms have a garden of course and he spent a great deal of time in his. The people had put down black plastic and it could be very warm sitting there in the sun. He would wait until the man came and did his work in the garden in the morning and when he went back in the house he would enjoy his time in the garden. The people had planted some wonderful vegetables that he was able to eat all day long and then took some home to his family of course. There were cabbages, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cucumbers, swiss chard, beans, turnips, melons, watermelon. Early in the season he would munch on the lettuce, it was usually up first and then once it got very warm he did like the beans very much. The cabbages were just huge and he would sit under the leaves in the middle of the day and take a little nap and no one would even know he was there.

One day after gathering vegetables from the garden and chicken food from the chicken house he came home to find his mother in the kitchen making dinner. They lived in the stone wall or rather more like under the stone wall. His father had dug out a large cavern and they stood in that now. It was a large room with the kitchen at one end and the living room at the other. The ceiling was the stone wall as were the walls and the floors were dirt. His mother had worked many hours making colorful rag rugs for the floors to make her home comfortable. There was a nice little wood stove made from a tin can in the kitchen. Henry’s father put in a sink as well and there was even a large water tower in the corner, in the summer it was filled by the rainwater collection Henry’s father had made in the stone wall and in the winter they carried in snow and let it melt for their water. At the other end of the cavern where they all sat and told stories at night was a very large bench that went in a U all around the room in front of a large fireplace. There were baby bassinets lining most of the other wall space in the room to accommodate all the mice babies that came many times a year. Off of this cavern was a hall way that rooms opened from for all the children to sleep in.


Henry’s mother was preparing dinner and finishing making the baby bottles, 22 bottles to be exact. His mother was very pregnant again and she looked tired. With so many children to always care for she was always tired. On the stove a soup was cooking for the older children. Henry was the oldest child living at home, his brothers and sisters from his litter had all moved out long ago. His sisters were having litters of their own. Henry was trying to help his mother but he kept bumping into her, getting under foot and she was very annoyed with him and told him to stop “helping”. Any number of babies were crying for their food and the toddlers were pretty anxious to eat as well and were getting antsy for their meal. Henry ate his soup as quickly as he could. His father came home just then and gave his wife a big hug, told her of all the food he had gathered for the day. She smiled wearily and told him that the new litter would be coming soon so he would have to keep close to home for just a bit. She looked at Henry and said “Henry darling, I know you have had your own room for a long time but I am afraid I am going to need it for this new littler. We have run out of places to put all the children and your room could fit all of them” Henry said “But what about all my things, they will ruin everything Mom”. Henry’s father looked at him and said “Son, it’s time we had a talk” He walked outside into the outer chamber of their house in the stone wall where they stored most of the food. It was filled with jars and jars of food that his mother had put up including beans, tomatoes, peas, corn, pickles, pickled beets and so much more. There were bins of potatoes, onions, shelves that held huge jars of rice, pasta, flour, sugar, etc. Henry followed his father to the outer room for their talk. “Henry” his father said “it’s high time you found your own home to live in” I know you like it here but it really is past time for you to move out. I will give you a week to find a place. Why don’t you get Gary to help you, he’s been living on his own for a while. Gary was Henry’s best friend of all time, they did all sorts of things together and it was true, Gary had been living on his own for some time. Everyone thought it was high time Gary get a wife even but he kept saying he was not ready although he dated plenty of girl mice he had not fallen in love, for now he was bachelor. Henry went over to Gary’s house which was under the deck of the farmhouse. It was a big place actually that at one time had belonged to a family of ….. There were many rooms but Gary just lived in a few of them. He knocked on the door and Gary said come in and have something to eat. So Henry did. Henry told him about the conversation he had with his father. Gary said “He’s right you know, you should have moved out ages ago” Will you help me find a home said Henry. Of course I will said Gary. We’ll start first thing in the morning.