THE HERMIT WOOD RAT 47 



crusts and the like — up to the hole, leave his 

 collection, run out of the door at the other end 

 of the house where he had an entrance beneath 

 it, go under and put his head up through the 

 ever-handy knot-hole, and then pull the whole 

 supply of crusts and what-nots beneath. Why 

 he made the roundabout trips to get beneath 

 the open hole I do not know. Probably in our 

 exact way of thinking it was a waste of energy, 

 not efficient. But there is one thing that im- 

 presses me more. Billy showed that he could 

 carry a thought and hold his attention uninter- 

 ruptedly to the task in hand. 



More surprising still to me was the help 

 Billy took from my hand when he was put to 

 hard straits to get an extra large orange peel 

 through the knot-hole. Many, many times have 

 I pushed while he pulled. Here was the accept- 

 ance of cooperation, a trait befitting human 

 beings again. 



Not always did this wood rat work so pur- 

 posefully. Sometimes his work showed more 

 industry than judgment. There were, it seemed 

 to me, times of "much ado about nothing," 

 — for instance, when he carried all the little 



