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THE MOUSE GOD by Richard Kennedy

THE MOUSE GOD

By

Pub Date: April 19th, 1979
Publisher: Atlantic/Little, Brown

Kennedy's barnyard cat concocts a mouse-catching plan and implements it with relish-not because he wants the mice for supper, but just because he has to earn his keep and get rid of the creatures. First, though, the vain cat makes himself a mouseskin outfit to protect his own coat while chasing his prey. When he shows up in it, the mice mistake him for ""the mouse god."" Thus they agree to build a little church, file into it for hymn-singing on Sunday morning, and let themselves be carried off to ""heaven"" (actually, the nearest river) by their god. All goes according to plan except that a traveling preacher is so taken with the cat's sweet ""music box"" that he asks to have it, and the mice go on singing and so everyone is happy. It's clever enough as Kennedy tells it, and Harvard's cat looks sufficiently dashing in his mouseskin duds.