Grandpa worked hard all spring and summer. He planted the fields with the help of his old mule. Working from sun to sun, they worked until the time of harvest. He had what they say is a bumper crop in all he planted. He had put up a lot of different grains, fruits and vegetables in his old barn. Psalm 67:6 - "Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
This year the old barn was totally full."
Grandpa was a man who took notice of the seasons and almost all things around him. The direction the wind would blow. The smell of the air. He could tell if it was going to rain or not. The color of the sky and even how the animals were acting. James 3:7 - "For every kind of beasts, and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed, and hath been tamed of mankind." The wild animals as well as the barn animals could sense nature and would tell him what was about to happen. When the old cows at the far end of the pasture came running to the cow barn, he knew a storm was coming.
Grandpa said most animals on the farm have been tamed. But those barn mice and rats were a pest and could not be tamed. He said you would have to pay particular attention to the them. He said they eat up your grains and if left unchecked could spread disease. He said they are all around. In the field, in the woods and worst some creep into the barn where the crops are, to steal and devour. He said like your Grandma would say after reading her Bible, Leviticus 11:29 - "These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind."
Grandpa said, "Your Grandma is right about the weasel and the mouse, but I take exception to what your Grandma said." I asked him, "How? Why?" He replied, "She speaks of the unclean four legged critters. I know some rats just down the hollow, the two legged kind. They often sneak into my barn and try to steal my supplies and harvest. Like the good book says in Psalm 6:30 - "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry. But these rats steal to sell to others, to profit not from their labors, but someone else." Mathew 24:43 - "But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. If they truly needed some of my harvest, I would freely give them, you never can tell when the thief will come. You always have to be on guard."
I asked him just how was he going to control all those rats to keep them from robbing him and protect his harvest. He replied, “Did you know there are all kinds of rats. There are brown rats, black rats, white rats and even pack rats. There are almost as many colors of rats as colors of people. Each color thinks it's the most important, but in the end, they are all rats. They are all different, but all the same. No one color of rat matters more than the other, they are all creatures of habit, and each has a degree of intelligence, Some of them think almost human, other think like the fools." Proverbs 14:8 - "The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit." Some rats play with a trap and eat the cheese, while others are caught in the trap. Speaking of colors, there is even a snake called the red rat snake. But I knew your Grandma was not one to favor me putting snakes into the barn to control the rats, I got some cats."
I said Grandpa, "I know wild feral cats will work on the four legged rats, but all you got is an old house cat. It would more near play with them than catch and eat them." Then I asked him how you going to control the two legged kind you spoke about to. He remarked, “These will not be ordinary cats. They are special for keeping out the two legged rats." I was puzzled. I thought to myself, is he going to put a bobcat in the barn?
He said I had to look far and wide to get this cats. I even set some traps in the woods to see if I could catch one. After a few days, I was amazed that I caught two of them. So I went back to the barn and fixed a nice little area for them to kinda nest in. I built a cage inside so they would not escape. They were frisky little things. So much so, they push over a can of blue paint I had just opened to paint the chicken house side of the barn. Grandma said hens lay better if they see blue and give more eggs. Them crazy wild cats done spilled the paint on their tails. What a site. A blue tailed cat.
Well it had been just a week after the final harvest when Grandpa came into the front room and announce that his cat had done caught three mice. He said they are great at the four legged kind. Now that word is out that my crops are all in, let's see if my special cats can catch the two legged kind. Job 18:10 - "The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way."
Must have been about 2 a.m. in the morning that cool autumn night, when we heard men yelling and what appeared to be gasping for breath. We all got up and looked outside. Grandma said, "I think someone's in the barn. I see a light out there." She said asked Grandpa if he was going to go out there with his shotgun. He replied, "Don't have to, the cats will do a fine job."
As one of the men ran out of the barn, I heard him say, “What kinda critter was that? Black and white body and a blue tail. And what a smell. Let's get out of here." Never saw two men run so fast.
Days later while at the local country store, Grandpa said he was about to but some cooking stuff for Grandma when two men walked in. They reeked of an odor. He asked “New cologne”, and smiled. He now new who the two legged thieves were. They had just met his blue tail polecats as we country folks would say. Skunks to city folks. All the mice had been removed and no longer did he have a threat of two legged rats.
Ephesians 4:28 - “Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.”
After a while Grandpa opened the barn doors wide, so the little thief catchers could return to their native surroundings. Legends say that every once in a while you can still see those little blue tail critters crossing the road. Grandpa was never bothered with barn thieves again.
---
Charles Finney
ccfinney@yahoo.com