City Mouse by Ann Howells My daughter springs from the car, naked feet drum a ragged lawn where the dog half-crouches, barks, pins some small animal against rough brick. Don’t pick it up! but she is fascinated by tiny creatures— salamanders, crawdaddies, fat-fingered frogs, darting opalescent minnows, woolie bears, soft green locusts with leaded-glass wings. She rescues a field mouse, fat and sleek, dapper, unlike scraggly, grey city cousins. No country gentleman though, he bites. I wash, re-wash tiny punctures, telephone the local doctor who advises no treatment. Odds roll from his tongue. But, I don’t speak this language: bottom, holler, crick. Don’t understand women named Nettie and Orpha. Or trust a doctor white-haired, countrified.
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