Rutherford
by Bob Brewer
Copyright 2012
Rutherford is a work of fiction entirely from the mind of Bob Brewer. It is intended for general audiences especially those of an age who still enjoy a bit of fantasy.
I dedicate this book to children everywhere
Now enjoy Rutherford
CHAPTER 1
Rutherford lived under the haystack in Mister Tinkerman’s barn with his ten brothers and sisters. He was the youngest of the field mouse family and he got picked on almost everyday by his older sister, Nell. Nell’s favorite thing to do was to play hide and seek as long as she was the one doing the hiding. Of course she was never ‘It’. When it came her turn to find the others, she made Rutherford stand in for her. “Why do I have to be ‘It’ again?” Rutherford would plead. “Because I said so,” Nell would answer. “So turn around and start calling names.”
There wasn’t much else to do in the nest, and venturing into the danger that lurked outside their little den was out of the question. According to Nell, the only thing out there was too awful to even describe. So Rutherford would give in and take her place once again. That’s the way it was until the day he turned two weeks old. On that day, in the middle of a game, he stopped and said he didn’t want to play anymore. Nell was seriously upset by his refusal to take her turn. “If you’re not going to play anymore, you can just leave!” she told him.
They were all standing by the doorway that led into the barn. She pointed to it. “Go on, we double dare you to go out there. We triple dare you.”
Rutherford hesitated for a long time looking first at her then at the door then back again. Finally, in a squeaky little voice he asked, “Why don’t you go?”
“Because I’m not the one who wants to quit the game,” Nell answered with her nose in the air.
Deep down Rutherford knew that wasn’t her real reason, but he didn’t have the courage to say it. He could tell that she was just as afraid to go outside the den as he was. She just wouldn’t own up to it. He shivered and backed away. “What if I get lost?”
“That’s easy,” Nell answered. “If mom or dad asks about you we’ll tell them you’re hiding. They’ll never know. It’s either that or you take your turn being ‘It’.” She nodded to the others and they all nodded back. “So, what’s it going to be? Are you going to play or not?”
Rutherford was tired of playing hide and seek. That’s all the others wanted to do every day, all day long. But going outside? That was just too scary to think about. “I guess I’ll be ‘It’,” he answered after a long sigh.
“I knew you wouldn’t go out. You’re just a scaredy pants.” She was always saying things like that to make him feel bad. All the others laughed at Nell’s joke then rushed off to find a hiding spot among the stuff the previous tenants had left. Those residents had been packrats so there was plenty of hiding places.
Rutherford sat down at the side of the door flap, closed his eyes and began to call off the names of his brothers and sisters. He was calling their names out loud, but inside he was punishing himself and thinking that Nell was right when she said he was a coward. “...Herbert, Kinsey, Nell, ready or not here I come!”
“No fair,” cried Roger. “Rutherford’s cheating! He didn’t say Paulo and he didn’t say me!”
Rutherford stood and took a deep breath. “I quit!” he said and started walking away.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Nell climbed down from the top of the rag pile where she had been hiding and ran over to Rutherford. “The deal was you play fair or you have to go outside and face whatever’s out there, all alone.”
Rutherford let his head droop. In a very quite voice he said, “Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, I’ll go outside. Tomorrow. I’ll go out tomorrow.”
Nell screwed her face into the meanest look she could make and squinted at him. “You better not change your mind,” she warned.
Rutherford spent the whole night worrying about the next morning. He was too young to know what to expect and he thought the worst. Nell said she knew what was out there, and if she was right, once he left the den he might never come back. Should he go and chance it or should he stay and be bullied? Those were big decisions for such a tiny mouse.
When morning finally arrived, he made up his mind. As frightened as he was, he decided that going outside would be better than putting up with Nell’s tormenting for another day. So he quietly gathered a few grains of wheat and a kernel of corn for the trip and tied them into a small bundle that he could carry on a stick over his shoulder, and before the others awoke, he tiptoed out of the dim light of the den.
It had rained during the night and the sky outside was still filled with dark clouds, but even without the sun shining through the cracks in the walls, the inside of the barn was lots brighter than Rutherford was used to. He couldn't make out anything. He tried rubbing his eyes to clear things up but that didn't help much. All he could do was put on a brave front and walk out into the barn.
He had taken only three short steps into the new world when he tripped over the stack of pebbles his father used to mark the entrance to their home. He plopped down face first into the thick layer of straw on the barn floor.
“Better watch where you’re going.”
Rutherford batted his eyes against the brightness and tilted his head trying to make out where the voice was coming from and who owned it. The sound scared him through and through but he didn’t know which way he should run to get away from it. He froze in place.
“You’re new around here, aren’t you?” the voice said.
A straw-filled scarecrow, old and tattered, stood propped against the barn wall in front of him. Rutherford found that if he narrowed his eyes into thin slits he could almost make the thing out. It was huge, and ugly and talking to him. Even though the voice didn’t seem to match its size, he was ready to shoot back into the nest and hide under a pinecone. But before he could move, it spoke again. “Cat got your tongue?”
Rutherford tried to answer but a squeak is all that came out. He took a deep breath and tried again. “What’s a cat?” he heard himself say.
“Oh boy!” said the scarecrow. “I can see you’re new around anywhere, aren’t you?”
By now Rutherford’s vision had straightened out a bit and he could see fairly clearly. Although he thought his knees might give way at any moment, he stood on his back legs and craned his neck to get a closer look the creature. It towered above him, but so far it hadn’t made a move to gobble him up like he thought it might. He twitched his nose and sniffed the air. When he didn’t sense anything new, he took a couple of short steps toward the thing and sniffed again.
“Well, what do you think? Do I need a bath?”
“What’s a bath?” asked Rutherford.
Two little eyes in a band of black hair popped up over the scarecrow’s shoulder. “Okay. Enough with the games,” said scarecrow. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?”
Rutherford backed up and once again fell over the pile of pebbles.
The scarecrow laughed.
“It’s not funny!” said Rutherford, gaining a small amount of confidence.
The owner of the two eyes climbed onto the scarecrow’s shoulder and giggled. “Oh yes it is,” he said. “Anyhow, I’m just funning with you. I’m Charlie.”
Rutherford could tell now that the terrible looking creature wasn’t the one doing the talking, and he didn’t sound too fierce. That was a relief. “What are you standing on, Charlie?” he asked, getting his feet back under him.
Charlie climbed down the side of the scarecrow and edged over to Rutherford. Pointing up at the mo
nster he said, “That’s a make believe Mister Tinkerman. He’s not real, you know? I think they put him out in the garden sometimes to keep the birds away. What’s your name?”
“Rutherford.”
Charlie nodded. “I was kidding about this being my house. I just sneak in here every once in a while. Kind of like what you’re doing, huh?”
Rutherford cocked his head to one side. “I’m not sneaking. I live here.”
“You live here and you don’t know what a cat is?” Charlie blurted it out as though it was unbelievable. Rutherford shook his head, and Charlie put some urgency in his voice. “That’s something you really need to know. Jump on my back and let me show you.” Charlie had a long, bushy tail, just right for a field mouse to climb up if he wanted to get onto a raccoon’s back.
Rutherford cringed. Even though Charlie was more his size than the scarecrow, he still looked to be ten or twenty times bigger than Rutherford. “Oh, come on. I’m not going to hurt you. Anyhow, you’ll be on my back and you can jump off anytime you want to. You really do need to learn about the cat.” Still frightened and very unsure that he was doing the right thing, Rutherford straightened his shoulders, gathered his courage and a handful of fur. He was thinking that Nell would change her mind about him being a coward if she could see him now, scampering aboard this strange creature called Charlie. “Hang on,” said Charlie, and he zipped them across the barn floor, under the hay-wagon, around a horse stall and through his own special hole in the wall.
CHAPTER 2
A whole new world opened up for Rutherford when Charlie and he reached the barnyard. It had been raining earlier and the wetness of it left a truck-load of brand new smells in the air to greet them when they exited the barn. All sorts of strange creatures roamed the muddy grounds among these smells, some of them were little (though none as small as Rutherford), some were larger and some were giant-like. Rutherford muffled his cries and tried to bury himself in Charlie’s coat as they raced across the yard. Each new creature he saw caused him to wiggle further into Charlie’s fur and guess if it was the cat that Charlie was so anxious to show him. But all he got for his inquiries were no, no, no’s until they rounded a corner beyond the barnyard fence where Charlie put on the brakes. Charlie whispered over his shoulder as he skidded them to a stop in view of the farmhouse, “That’s where Mr. Tinkerman lives. You never, ever want to go over there because that’s where the cat lives, too. But you have to keep your eyes open all the time ‘cause you never know where that cat might be. He’s sneakier than I am.”
Rutherford squeaked a giggle at that remark and peeked through the fur of Charlie’s neck. “Shhh,” Charlie shushed him and pointed to an orange mound curled up and snoozing on Mr. Tinkerman’s porch swing. “That’s the cat. Watch this.” Charlie picked up a double handful of mud and began forming it into a ball.
Rutherford scooted up Charlie’s neck. “What are you going to do, Charlie?” he whispered into the raccoon’s ear. Charlie didn’t answer. Instead he drew back and sent the glob of mud spinning through the air towards the sleeping cat. The slushy ball splattered on the wall just above the cat’s head. The cat shot to his feet, his tail reaching for the porch ceiling, his back arched, all of his hair standing up stiff and electrified. His teeth flashed and he let out a gigantic sound that sent Rutherford diving straight into Charlie’s ear. Charlie nearly fell over laughing.
Charlie and Rutherford were well on their way back to the safety of the barn by the time the cat figured out what had happened. As Charlie dashed under the fence, Rutherford emerged from his ear. “That was scary, Charlie! Why did you do that?”
Charlie stopped in front of the chicken coop. “I wanted you to see what the cat looked like, that’s why.”
“But now it knows what I look like, too. I don’t think that was a very good idea.”
Charlie tilted his head and let out a little moan. “Maybe he didn’t get a good look at you. That’s it! When you think about it, he probably won’t recognize you when he sees you again.”
Rutherford jumped off Charlie’s head and onto the board-ramp that led up into the hen house. Somewhere along their hasty retreat Rutherford’s parcel of grain had gone missing. “That’s no problem,” Charlie assured him. “Just wait here and I’ll go back and find it.”
“What about the cat?” Rutherford asked over the noises of the hen house.
Charlie picked up another glob of mud. “He won’t bother me. He can’t stand to get his paws wet. It would take a lot more than a mud pie to get him off that porch on a day like this.”
“You mean something like me,” Rutherford stated.
“Yep, like you. So stay right here. I’ll be right back with your stuff.” Charlie clapped his hands together to get rid of the mud. “By the way, those are chickens in there. They won’t bother you.”
Between the cawing and clucking and peeping, it seemed to Rutherford that there was an awful lot of noise coming from a place that was supposed to be harmless. But Charlie had rushed away stranding him there, out in the open where anything could get him. Urged on by both fear and curiosity, Rutherford finally crept up to the top of the ramp and peeked inside the coop. It was dark inside and straw was scattered all over the place. It reminded him of his home, and that reminded him of Nell and why he was out here in the first place. He had to prove, at least to himself, that he wasn’t the baby, scardey pants that Nell said he was. He took a small step inside.
“Are you lost?” a momma hen asked him in a clucking sort of way. Swarming around her were a dozen or more bits of yellow fluff with black eyes and tiny orange beaks. It seemed they were all crying for her attention. She clucked and they hushed and ran under her wings. “Did I hear you talking about Fritz, the cat?” she asked after spreading her wings to form a tent over her brood of chicks.
“Fritz!” another chicken shouted so loud that Rutherford backed up against the wall of the coop to hide in case the cat had somehow found him. “Where’s Fritz?” the other hen yelled again.
“Settle down, Mazie,” the momma hen told her. “Fritz isn’t coming.”
The mention of Fritz’s name created a frenzy of chatter throughout the henhouse.
So Charlie wasn’t the only one who thought the cat, Fritz, was a bad character. It sounded as if Mazie was ready to fly out of the coop because of him. Rutherford’s natural curiosity about his survival took over. “What’s so bad about the cat?” he asked.
Momma hen cawed and cleared her throat. “Well, for one thing he is a cat, and cats and birds just don’t mix. We’re birds, you know? They call us chickens, but we’re really just big birds. And cats and mice don’t mix either. Didn’t your momma teach you that?” She sounded as though she were amazed by the mere thought of it.
What the momma hen said and how she said it caused Rutherford to wonder why his mother or father had never said anything about the cat. If Fritz was such a terrible creature then surely his parents should have talked about him, if not to the kids at least between themselves. But as far as Rutherford could recall, they never had. To him that was curious. Of course they had never mentioned a raccoon or chickens either: or any of the other strange animals that filled the barnyard. When Rutherford thought about it, his folks were actually not very talkative at all. Not a bit like momma hen.
“I don’t mean to gossip or cause trouble,” momma hen continued after a few clucks to the rebels of her group. The tiny rascals were poking their heads out from under the tent and beginning to make that peeping noise again. They quickly disappeared amongst her feathers and momma went on, “It’s a common fact that raccoons and mice don’t mix either.” Rutherford opened his mouth to speak. “I know,” she cut him off, “Charlie’s just a baby, himself, but you just watch yourself. Where is your momma?”
“I found it!” Charlie called from the fence. He scurried up on three feet holding Rutherford’s little package of grain in the remain
ing one. “You should have seen Fritz’s face when I picked this up.” He laughed. “I’ll bet he thought I was going to plaster him with mud again. It looked like he might be mad enough to chase me through the water, but he didn’t. He just stood there on the porch hissing and twitching all over. Boy, did he look mad!”
Rutherford couldn’t help himself. He laughed along with Charlie, remembering how the hairs on Fritz’s back had stood to attention after the mud-ball attack.
Momma hen clucked her annoyance with the pair of them, and Mazie jumped off her nest of eggs and padded over to face the boys. She ruffled up her feathers to make herself look much larger and meaner than she really was. She was in a huff and the boys were about to get the scolding of their lives. “What in the world is wrong with you two? Over there riling up the cat! There’s not one ounce of brains between you! I swear if I wasn’t setting right now I’d come undone and knock some sense into both of you. And you wouldn’t want me to come undone on you!”
“Now, Mazie,” momma hen clucked as if she was talking to her chicks. “Don’t go getting all flustered. They know they did wrong, don’t you, boys?” Glad that momma hen was on their side, both Rutherford and Charlie nodded an emphatic yes. “There you are, Mazie, they’re sorry and they won’t ever go getting on Fritz’s nerves again. Right?” The two ruffians nodded again.
But Mazie wasn’t through. “That’s the last thing we need,” she went on. “Old Fritz poking around where he don’t belong. We got troubles enough watching for hawks and keeping the kids out of the pigpen and such. You two just let well enough alone.” Now she was through. She spun around, took a long drink of water out of the trough, and jumped back into her nesting box to begin her egg-turning routine.
Being duly admonished for their rude and dangerous behavior, and out of respect for their elders, Rutherford and Charlie hung their heads and slowly trudged out of the hen house. Once outside, however, they sped down the ramp, and when they were out of Mazie’s sight they stopped for another belly-shaking laugh about Fritz’s reaction to Charlie’s prank. Rutherford knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, but it was funny. Charlie was funny and fun to be around. Out here in the world that Nell had made to sound so frightening, Rutherford had found his first friend. And if all he had to do was watch out for a cat who was afraid of water, why he could do that with one eye closed. But Fritz the cat wasn’t the only thing Rutherford needed to be on the lookout for.