Bold was he, as I sat at my desk. Right up to my foot he walked, seemingly oblivious. I had to tap my foot to get his attention or I think he would have climbed right onto my slipper. That would have been ok but I thought to spare us any ensuing chaos.

He retreated with no special haste into the foyer. I followed and sat down on the floor to introduce myself. He seemed to have almost no fear.

Towards the end of our conversation, after praising his courage, I informed him that he’d need to get into a box that I would provide, that I would be putting him outside, that in a perfect world I would gladly allow him to make himself at home but that this world was not so constructed. I went to get the box.

When I got back he had hidden under the radiator. I asked him to come out and get in the box. He demurred. Gently with a piece of paper I coaxed him from under the radiator, hoping he’d see the box as safety. Alas. He saw my office as safety, in the corner by the bookcase. Little did he know that he may as well as climbed into the box. I took another piece of paper and made, as it were, a three sided box canyon and then placed the actual box on the fourth side. Then, just as in those movies where the protagonists are caught in a room where one of the walls is slowly moving toward its opposite, so that they will clearly be crushed, I moved the paper wall slowly.

Being a smart mouse he read the situation perfectly and ran into the box. Not as smart as a vole, I daresay, who would have seen that the paper wall was no wall at all, but I was not giving off a very predatory vibe and maybe he was just rolling with it.

I gave him one more talking to, about where he would be going (under the barn), about expectations, about what he should tell his friends and family. I underlined that I had nothing but the strongest positive wishes him and his. This was in April of the year 2020.