of 



among whom you are only one of a different kind, 

 then all the others, no matter their kind, are 

 earth-born companions and fellow mortals. 



Here are the meadow voles. I know that my hay 

 crop is shorter every year for them, a very little 

 shorter. And I can look with satisfaction at a cat 

 carrying a big bobtailed vole out of my mowing. 

 The voles are rated, along with other mice, as injuri- 

 ous to man. I have an impulse to plant both of my 

 precious feet upon every one that stirs in its run- 

 way. 



If that feeling was habitual once, it is so no longer ; 

 for now it is only when the instincts of the farmer 

 get the better of me that I spring at this quiet stir 

 in the grass. Perhaps, long ago, my forbears wore 

 claws, like pussy ; and, perhaps (there is n't the 

 slightest doubt), I should develop claws if I con- 

 tinued to jump at every mouse in the grass because 

 he is a mouse, and because I have a little patch of 

 mucky land in hay. 



One day I came upon two of my voles struggling in 

 the water. They were exhausted and well-nigh dead. 

 I helped them out as I should have helped out any 

 other creature, and having saved them, why, what 



94 



