My driving partner and I were driving a truck with a bed in back of the cab. we were hauling lumber from Oregon, to the plains states,and then we would load grain, like wheat, and corn, to haul back to the coast. It is on one of these trips, is what this story is about. We loaded the truck in Portland. Oregon, with lumber, We had to put a tarp over it, so the dry lumber would not get wet from the snow, or the rain. the season was winter. We had the usual trip going to a plains state, we had to stop at the mountains. to put tire chains on. When we got to Nebraska we tried to unload the lumber, but the tarp has frozen to the lumber. we had to borrow a blow torch to defrost the tarp. After we got the tarp and the lumber off, we went a few miles to load some bulk corn.

The truck was equipped with folding sides. All we had to do was lift them up and put some stake that were provided in holes in the bed of the truck. We did what was needed, and I drove the truck under a hopper that poured the corn in the bed of the truck and trailer. After the truck was loaded, we headed for Oregon.

One night as I was driving, and my partner was sleeping, in the sleeper, a little mouse showed up on the dashboard, he looked out of the windsield like. the dashboard was an observation deck. I tried to hit him with my partners shoe, but he ran under the dashboard. The noise of the shoe banging on the dashboard woke my partnerr up. What are you doing he asked as he pullerd back the curtain that seperated us. I'm trying to kill a damn mouse that was on the dashboard I told him. You better leave those damn pills alone, he zipped the curtain shut and went back to sleep.

When it was his turn to drive, we went into a cafe to eat, while we were eating my partner started to laugh, what the hell are you laughing at? You and your mouse he said. Dawn had just broke, there was snow on the ground, my partner was driving slow, I trusted him with my life. I was sleeping like a baby. All of a sudden I heard my pqrtner yell, get the hell out of here you son of a bitch, he had seen my friend the mouse. We stopped at the first store that we saw and bought a mouse trap and some cheese, We had to lay over that night, we were getting close to driving to many hours that week. so we rented a motel room for the night. But before we went in we baited the mouse trap, Now we will get him.

My partner liked to chew juicy fruit gum, He left part of a package in the truck cab, When we got back in the truck the next morning, we looked at the mouse trap, nothing had been touched. The cheese was still there, the trap was still set. Could that little mouse, that liked to look at the scenery go by, from his own oservation deck. be smarter than us?

It was my partners turn to drive that morning, I wasn't sleepy, I had just spent the night in the motel, I started wiping the dust off of things, and just straightening stuff up. Then I saw it, the juicy fruit gum showed signs of a mouse chewing on it. that damn mouse liked juicy fruit gum better than cheese. I was getting sleepy, so I started taking my clothes off to get in the sleeper, when I lowered my pants, My belt touched me on my bare leg, I yelled he's on me, and threw my pants, and made all kinds of gyrations on my side of the cab. As soon as I realized what it was, I told my partner I was sorry but I thought it was the mouse. He chuckled and said, A big truck driver like you, and your afraid of a little mouse? Yes and you are too. You proved the other night.

That mouse lived with us for two weeks, before we decided to put juicy fruit gum in the mouse trap. We set the trap with gum one night. the next morning when we checked the trap, the mouse was dead and caught. But we still did not know where that mou
se was living for all that time,

I lifted the mattress of the sleeper, and there they were. six baby mice. in their warm nest. my partner and I had been keeping them warm for miles.