Although we had a cat, there were mice in our house. At night when it was very quiet and the lights were out and we were in our beds, we could hear the mice when they came out of their holes and ran about over the wood floor of our kitchen, and even in our own bedroom. If we listened carefully we could hear their squeaks, and we enjoyed listening to them.
I thought it was very good to have these small shy things in our house. They were thieves and they had to steal their food, but yet they were a family, just as we were a family. As they were living in our house with us I was fond of them.
Sometimes at night, when I listened to the mice, I could feel that my brother Krikor was listening to them too. We slept in the same room and his bed was beside mine so that we were very close. If I was awake and he was awake I could feel that he was awake because it was different when he was asleep. When I knew he was awake, I sometimes said, ”Do you hear them, Krikor?” And Krikor said, ”Don't talk. They will start to play now.”
”Moog”, the word for mouse in our language, is not a scientific name, but means a small living thing, quick. and easily frightened. If a child is small and shy, he is sometimes fondly called by this name. When we speak of mice in our language we think of them as shy and playful. We do not think of them as dangerous to our health or as thieves of our food. They do take a little food here and there and sometimes we find their dirt on the floor, but this is the worst we can say about them. None of us got ill because of the mice, and Krikor said that if mice became ill they would die before they made us ill. He was not ill either.
Once or twice we saw our cat with a mouse it caught. We saw how the cat played with a mouse and then ate it. We understood that something living was being killed and yet we felt this was all right. Cats were fond of eating mice and it was the mouse's business to keep out of the way of cats.
A cat was a living thing like a mouse, only of another family and of another size and they were both intelligent. It was right for the cat to use its intelligence to catch a mouse and it was right for the mouse to use its intelligence to keep out of the cat's way. It was really quite an honest business. If the cat caught the mouse, it was because the cat was specially clever, perhaps because it was very hungry.
This is the only intelligent way to look at the problem. It is useless to feel sorry for the mice and feel that cats are bad. If you think about it, you will find that it is not easy for a cat to catch a mouse. To feel sorry for the mouse is quite wrong.