@ Cure for Winter 
Full benely stuffit, baith but and ben, 
Of beirris and nuttis, peis, ry and quheit — 
all of it, ready stored, so that, 
Quhen ever scho list scho had aneuch to eit. 
Enough to eat? Certainly; but is enough to eat all 
that a mouse wants? So far from being satisfied with 
mere meat was this particular mouse, that finding 
herself in the cellar in the midst of plenty, she at 
once began to carry my winter stores from where I 
had put them, and to make little heaps for herself 
in every dark cranny and corner of the cellar. A pint, 
or less, of “nuttis” — shagbarks — she tucked away 
in the toe of my hunting boot. The nuts had been 
left in a basket in the vegetable cellar; the boots 
stood out by the chimney in the furnace room, and 
there were double doors and a brick partition wall 
between. No matter. Here were the nuts she had 
not yet stored, and out yonder was the hole, smooth 
and deep and dark, to store them in. She found a 
way past the partition wall. 
Every morning I shook those nuts out of my boot 
and sent them rattling over the cellar floor. Every 
night the mouse gathered them up and put them 
snugly back into the toe of the boot. She could not 
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