The White-Footed Mouse

A boy is sure he has the world’s best father, an outdoorsman who shows him the hiding places of ground-nesting birds and teaches him to paddle a canoe and handle a rifle safely.  “Never point your gun at anything you don’t intend to shoot,” his father tells him, “and don’t kill anything you don’t intend to eat.”

When he’s eight years old, he is finally allowed to go to hunting camp with his father. They climb through dark woods to the icy-cold camp, where Dad starts a fire in the stove. A few minutes later, a tiny, shivering white-footed mouse emerges from his nest to share the warmth of the stovepipe. The boy feeds him a bit of cheese and sees that the mouse trusts him. Later, when his father begins to bait a mouse trap, the boy wittily  reminds his Dad of the lesson he had taught him.

Bert Dodson Bert Dodson is the author and illustrator of the best-selling learn-to-draw classic Keys to Drawing as well as the illustrator of over 80 children's books including a previous one with Willem Lang. He has also co-written The Way Life Works with noted biologist Mahlon Hoagland. He lives in Bradford, Vermont. .

Willem Lange

Willem Lange is a short-story writer, commentator and host on Vermont Public Radio and New Hampshire Public Television. He also has a weekly column in The Valley News, the major newspaper in the NH/VT Upper Valley area. In addition to the Yuletide readings of his Christmas story, Favor Johnson, a staple on Public Radio for fifteen years, his annual readings of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol -- on stage, on Vermont Public Radio, and on Armed Forces Radio overseas -- have been popular since 197