Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1890-12-19
A BRAVE WOMAN.
She Slept a Whole Night with a RAT On.
der Aer and Never Screamed.

der aer and Never Screamed,
More than o score of years ago a
party of Americans were travelling in
Spain. There were eight of them
four men and four women-and one
night they found themselves in little
hosiery containing one bed, in which
the women slept, with the bare floor for
the men, who found the necessary room
to lie down in by utilizing the space
under the bed for their feet. Just as
the party were dropping off into their
first doze the youngest woman felt
something soft and warm moving in the
straw of the tick beneath her. She
awaited moment to make sure, and
then as it began passage up one side
of her body she gave jump that landed
her clear over by the opposite wall, and
got ready to scream.
"What is it?" came from the doctor
on the floor.
"There is rat or snake in the
bed," she whispered excitedly.
The doctor sat up. Nonsense" he
said.
II tell you there is. It is in the
straw Of the tick. And it crept up my
leg"
sWell," asked the doctor calmly,
suppose there is an animal there.
What are you going to do about it."
@Do? Why, I'm going to get the
girls out, open the tick and take the
creature out. You don't suppose I'm
going to sleep oil night with snake
coiling around under me, do you?"
Now, see here, expostulated the
doctor, let's reason about this thing.
It can't he snake; it's probably rat {;
and it's inside the ticking and it can't
get out. It can't possibly harm you.
And by and by the warmth of your
body will make it drowsy, and it will
curl down quietly and go to sleep. So
much for the rat.
"Now, here We are-eight Of us tired
out. Nobody knows about the rat but
us two. Now, are you going to be
selfish enough to wake these six people
up, turn the girls out of their bed
they will scream, too, until they are
black in the face-make us men take
all the straw out of the tick, find and
kill the animal and then get all the
straw back into the tick-nearly q
whole nights performanse-just be-
cause you have got hysterical over a
harmless little creature?
"Now, be q sensible girl, get back
into bed and let me get to sleep again.
When the rat gets to sleep you will,
too. just try it"
If it is ever given to man to be
eloquent it is when he is pleading for
his own comfort, and the doctor was
just man after all. His persuasive
ness won. The young woman crept
timidly back, and lay with clinohed
fists and tightly shut eyes, while the
little creature nestled uneasily about,
and finally crept close to her side un-
der the ticking and curled down to
sleep. Sure enough the doctor was
right. And pretty soon she did go to
sleep, too, and only walked with the
morning to tell the other women of
their fifth bedfellow, and how she had
saved them from an overwhelming
fright.
And the girls quite turned their head
with their obs! and abs! And the doc;
ter said she was pretty sensible for q
woman. And she sometimes tells the
story even to-day. "But was it rat
after all?" the listener is sure to ask
when she is done. And she also likes
to answer, 1T is my chiefest glory in
the whole affair that I left the inn
within an hour without speaking of the
matter, and to this day do not know
whether slept with rat, or kitten,
or q snake. IN. 7. EUeali7ag Sa1a.