A Strange Pet 



Snow Longley 



Los Angeles, Cal. 



One day last spring some of "our boys" captured a weasel on 

 the school-grounds and with some difficulty deposited him in a 

 cage in the nature room. At first he was very much terrified, 

 barking and lunging at all who came near, but in a few days he 

 became accustomed to his strange surroundings and would even 

 climb up his cage to greet me when I came to feed him and put his 

 house in order. 



At the time of the summer vacation the weasel was taken to 

 my home and, with more leisure at my disposal, his systematic 

 training began. In taming him my one principle was that, in 

 compensation for his lost freedom the little creature must find 

 his small environment a friendly world, and despite the lingering 

 protest of ancestral brain cells he grew to accept my philosophy. 

 One night when a stray dog came growling and scratching uncom- 

 fortably near, he jumped out of his bed and hopped up and down 

 the edge of his cage, crying like a baby. After I had driven the 

 dog away, I soothed the weasel with my voice till he went com- 

 fortably back to bed, never stirring till morning though his ancient 

 enemy returned several times during the night. 



I fed my pet raw meat and eggs till I discovered by chance 

 that he craved milk. After that his regular diet was milk, usually 

 with a little raw egg beaten into it, cornflakes and occasionally 

 meat. He was a small and very dainty eater, lapping his milk 

 even more deliberately than a cat, pausing at times to masticate 

 carefully a flake of corn, and taking his meat from between my 

 thumb and finger. If he did not want to eat at once what I gave 

 him, he would hoard it in a corner, regardless of Mr. Hoover, and 

 come back for more. 



"Mr. Weasel" grew very fond of petting and would stretch out 

 in lazy comfort or cuddle closer when I stroked and caressed him 

 with both hands. His response was in licking the fingers of those 

 he liked, stretching out his little paws and most of all in the elo- 

 quent look of his bright eyes. He liked to play too, and would 

 sometimes near-bite, putting his sharp teeth against your ringer 

 instead of his tongue, but never pressing hard. Another of his 

 games was to hide under the newspaper carpeting of his cage and 



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