Here is a story you don’t hear everyday…
Blockquote
Summer brought a phenomenon never seen in the mountains. We awoke one morning to find the camp filled with huge rats. Black rats, brown rats, and spotted rats ran wildly from the river. They were into everything. Baby chicks were killed and partially eaten. Food for the livestock was scattered. Holes gnawed in the feed sacks left grain pouring onto the ground. Before morning was over, they had found every hole and weak spot in our homes. They ran across the floors and under the furniture. Women forgot their squeamishness and were battering them with brooms and mops. Men got guns and clubs to try to herd them away. Every time one was killed, two more showed up to take its place.
All our metal and glass containers were used to protect our food. Lamps stayed lit all night. We didn’t dare step out of bed in the darkness. There was no place to keep the livestock food away from the rats. Hundreds were killed. We took sticks, clubs, hoes, or any weapons available when we went outside. I was thankful I didn’t have a tiny baby to watch constantly. When we fed the pigs, the rats came in droves to the troughs. They were so greedy, they tumbled into the swill and ate while they swam. The pigs squealed helplessly as food was taken out of their mouths.
The invasion lasted about a month before they went en masse on up the river. We felt a great plague had been called down upon us and was now lifted. Men no longer carried guns every time they went out the door. Sunday afternoons, which had been used as hunting days for the rats, were once again silent and peaceful.
We heard they were Norwegian wharf rats, which had come from a seaport in Louisiana. It was thought that they came up the Mississippi River, The Tennessee River, and eventually into Little River. Almost like one of the plagues in Egypt, they came and went without warning. In spite of the rat invasion, we felt everything was going well on the job.
—Florence Cope Bush – Dorie Woman of the Mountains
From a blog I read every day about life in Appalachia …
