Together they worked in the cool sand, Mr.
Kanga and Mrs.
Roo, digging with their white paws to make a home.
When day came they labored underground.
At last the burrow was completed and together they searched for bits of grass and gay bird feathers to line the nest chamber.
Time went on and the occupants of the burrow numbered four.
One morning after having dined on sunflower seeds and young cactus plants Mr.
Kangar and Mrs.
Roo curled up for their day's sleep.
Mrs.
Roo close to her two precious babies.
Overhead they heard a queer crunching sound.
They trembled.
Sunlight poured into their burrow.
Mrs.
Roo took her two wee babies one under each arm (at least that is what Joe Kelly told me).
Together they ran, Mr.
Kangar leading the way.
Joe caught them both and put them in a sack.
The two baby rats were dead.
He had crushed them in catching the mother.
Joe boxed the pair up and shipped them to me.
The old spiny cactus near their home burrow missed the fairy patter of their little feet.
Poor Mr.
Kangar and Mrs.
Roo were not there to dance to the eerie tune of the coyotes' yapping chorus.
The moon that night looked into a blank shallow hole.
Soon even this disappeared, covered by the wind blown sand.
The tenants had gone.
I languidly answered the telephone one morning.
"Come to the office at once," howled Dad over the wire.
"Why?" "Your confounded pets have arrived and the little fellows are out! Jumping all over the place.
" I hung up the receiver, rushed to the car, broke every traffic regulation that our small town can boast and whirled into Dad's office.
Papers were strewn over the floor.
A chair had capsized.
Dad appeared to be making: his most successful attempt at the Charleston.
I discovered that he had caught one of the kangaroo rats am it had run up his sleeve.
The frightened little creature refused to come down and Dad was intensely annoyed.
The business's only office boy was whanging his shins and now and then giving his head a bump in an effort to catch the remaining kangaroo rat.
But Mr.
Kangar did not plan to be caught.
He ran close to the floor, jumped, hid under things, dodged and ducked while the office boy ruined himself and the business's furniture.
Then Mr: Kangar jumped on a desk near me and I gently closed my hands on him for he was just too tired to move.
I put him back in the box.
The other kangaroo rat was digging into Dad with all four feet.
Dad was disgusted and grieved and horrified and pained.
To think that his daughter should be responsible for such a thing! I reached my hand a little ways up Dad's cuff and pulled out the struggling Mrs.
Roo.
Then before Dad could regain breath I left the disheveled office taking my pets with me.