The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
Little Stories For Bedtime
ROBBER THE RAT TALKS ABOUT | HIMSELF
(By THORNTON BURGESS

NANNY MEADOW MOUSE dldn
 know what to think. He certain
 ly didn't. Never before in all his life had he ever heard any one admit that they were bad and were proud of | it. So not knowing what to say, Danny simply said nothing at all. Robber the | Rat grinned It was an ugly sort of grin. It made Danny feel uncomforta- | ble.
 .Yes,' continued Robber, "Tm what you folks call bold and bad and I don't want to be any different, because don't believe it pays to be anything else. I believe the world owes me a living and that I have right to any thing I want and can get, and it makes no difference how I get it. If any one weaker than I has something l want l just take it. If any one bigger and stronger than I has something l want | just use my wits and steal it. That Is what wits are for. I'm always ready to | fight for what I've got or what I want I'm no coward I'm the only animal smart enough to live off of these men creatures in spite of all they can do.'
 
 House Mouse?" asked Danny timidly.
 Huh! He don't count" retorted Robber. "TO be sure, he lives in men $ houses and barns, but he isn't hunted l the way I am. He's glad of anything to eat and is afraid of his own shadow. Some of you people who live out on the Green Meadows and in the Green For est think you know what it is to be l ho- cause you are too small for him to both- CT with, but others. Isn't that sop Danny thought of Mrs. Grouse and Lightfoot the Deer and Bob White and Mrs. Quack, and how all of them feared the hunters with terrible guns more than all other things together. "Yes, '' said he, 'I guess that is true. I don't know how any one could be hunted any more than some of them are"
 Robber sniffed "They don't know what being hunted is" he declared ''They are hunted only at certain times in the year. To know what it is to be hunted you must be hunted all the time and never know single day when you can be sure of not being hunted, never go anywhere without first making sure that there is no hidden trap there. That is the way it is with me-" Robber said this somewhat proudly. "Yes, sir; am hunted all the time by these man creatures, and yet 1 make them feed me and feed me mighty well. l live right where they do, in the very houses they build, and if they have anything l want I take it. I gnaw holes in their floors and in their walls and into the secret places where they store things good tc eat. They hunt me and hunt me and hunt me, and hate them because they hunt me, but 1 despise them because am smarter than they.
 II am robber. I belong to family of robbers. My father and my grand father were robbers. I believe that might makes right. and that wits rather than strength makes might. So when see anything I want l take it either boldly or by cunning"
 | Danny shook his head. Ut isn't right, said he. Tt isn't right to take what doesn't belong to you"
 Anything belongs to me if l can get it." retorted Robber.
 "Oh, no, it doesn't. No, indeed Y exclaimed Danny, looking quite as shocked as he felt.
 That's because you care what other people think. l don't, retorted Rob Der.
 Don't you want friends?" asked Dan ny.
 Friends! What good are friends? sneered Robber. II haven't any friends I don't want any friends. Friends art bother. They are forever getting into trouble and wanting you to help then out. I say let every one look out fol himself. I look out for myself, and there isn't anybody lives any better than I dc or sees more of the Great World than do. I'm Robber the Rat, and live UT to my name. Everybody hates me anc I laugh at their hate. Listen! I heal some one coming. and it won't do fol me to be seen here!"
 Robber grinned at Danny and sour ried down through hole to his home under the floor st as Farmer Browns Boy appeared. Danny scampered bacl home to tell Nanny the dreadful thing: