[Downthestretch55]

Rats

Most everyone knows about rats. Seems that once they find where the grain bin is, or the garbage pile, or the chickens, there's no getting rid of them.
Believe me, I've tried.
So have many in previous days. Pied Piper comes to mind. Heck, that was in the days of the "black death"...boubonic plague.
Rats come. There's no rid.

So, one winter afternoon on there came a soft knock on the side door off the kitchen. It was not easy to hear the first time it came, as the "mud room", the place we took off our muddy boots and hung our smelly jackets was between the kitchen and the knocking.
I heard it the second time and left my coffee to answer.
There stood a little old lady, wrinkled and grey.
It was too cold to hold the door open, so I invited her in.
She took off her tattered coat and black scarf and was invited to sit at the table with us, warm by the stove.
She told us that she was our neighbor, had the place about a thousand feet up the road from our place, and that her property bordered ours, divided by the stream we shared. We could look at the deed.
Dad told her there was no need to. It was just nice to meet our neighbor.
Well, she relaxed as she got warmer and told us about herself.
Her accent was thick, eastern European, and she lit one cirgarette off the next. The smoke hung thick. By the second cup of coffee, she had revealed her name and a bit of her history.
Her name was Betty Ludwig. She was 82 years old. Her husband had died 15 years before, and she had sold her candy store in Brooklyn to buy the place where she decided to "retire", have a garden, tend her chickens, feed her rabbits.
She asked if we'd had any problems with rats as she had lost a few of her chickens during the past week.
We assured her that we hadn't, but we'd be on the look out. Thanks for the warning, Betty.
By now, she was feeling comfortable, maybe a bit warm. As she reached for her Lucky Strikes to light up the 10th or 11th, she pushed up the sleeves of the old holey sweater she wore. Right past the elbows.
It was then that I saw the numbers tatooed on the inside of her forearms.
My guess is that Betty knew far more about rats than I ever will.
Thanks for the warning, Betty. You were a friend to our family from that day until the day you died five years later. May you rest in peace.
I'll never forget you, your warnings, and the baby chicks you gave me.
The rats never got them. I never liked rats either.