Mr. and Mrs. Rat had ten babies. They were fat, glossy, little fellows, with long tails and shining black eyes, and they lived in a snug nest in the attic.

You can't imagine how hard it was for their father and mother to find names for so many children. Mrs. Rat wanted this name; Mr. Rat preferred that; but they couldn't agree on a single one. At last they decided to wait until the babies were grown up, then they could tell just what name would suit each one best.

It does not take long for baby rats to grow up, and in two or three weeks Father and Mother Rat began to name their children.

The biggest one was Jumbo, the smallest they called Tiny. One had a very long tail and he was called Long Tail; another had almost no tail at all, so he was named Bobby.

One rat was named Whiskers, because he had such handsome whiskers, and Spot had a tiny white spot over one of his eyes. Then there were Frisky, and Squeaker, and Listen, and Duncie.

Mother Rat didn't like Duncie's name at all; but he was so very, very slow and stupid that Father Rat wouldn't let her call him anything else.

"We can't expect every one of our ten children to be smart," he said. "If he is a dunce we must call him a dunce. That's all there is to it."

Of course all these brothers and sisters had very jolly times together. They played tag, and hide-and-seek, and blind-man's buff, and all sorts of good games; but sometimes they had dreadful quarrels. In such a large family there are bound to be quarrels once in a while.When they began to scratch and bite, Father Rat gave them all a good spanking and sent them to bed. Then Mother Rat crept up to tuck them in, with a big piece of cheese hidden under her apron.

The children usually obeyed their father and mother, and tried to be good little rats; but like all boys and girls they sometimes thought they knew more than their parents. Then they got into trouble.

Father Rat had built his nest in the attic of an old-fashioned farmhouse out in the country.

Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, who lived in the house, didn't seem to know anything about the ten young rats in the attic. Perhaps it was because they were very old and deaf, and didn't hear the little feet pattering across the floors and scampering up and down the walls.

But the ten young rats knew all about Mr. and Mrs. Barnes. They knew where Mrs. Barnes kept her cheeses and cookies, and they gnawed big holes and made good roads through the walls from the attic to the pantry and cellar.

They could find their way to the barn, too, where Mr. Barnes kept his corn and oats; and sometimes they used to slip into his hen-house and steal an egg for their supper.

Mr. and Mrs. Rat were very thoughtful about teaching their children. Every morning there was a long lesson in the schoolroom corner of the attic. The ten young rats sat up straight in a row and did just as they were told.

"Sniff!" said their mother, and they sniffed their little noses this way and that to see if they could smell a cat.

"Listen!" said their father, and they cocked their little heads on one side, and pricked up their ears to hear the tiniest scratch he could make.

"Scamper!" and they ran across the floor and slipped into a hole as quick as a wink.

They were taught to steal eggs, and to avoid traps, and when they had a lesson in apples you should have seen them work! Every one of them, except Duncie, of course, could gnaw into an apple and pick out the seeds before Mother Rat could count ten.

In Mrs. Barnes' storeroom there were long rows of tumblers filled with jelly. The tumblers were all sealed with paraffine, but the rats soon learned how to gnaw it off, and then what a feast they had!

They were growing so bold that Father Rat began to be anxious about them. "You children ought to be a little more careful," he said. "You'll get into trouble some day."

"We never have been caught," said Squeaker.

"No," said Frisky, "and we never will be. We know too much for that."One morning Father and Mother Rat went to visit an old uncle who lived down beside the pond, and they left the ten young rats all alone.

The minute they were gone Long Tail whispered, "Come on, Ratsies; let's go down to the cellar for some jelly."

"Father told us not to," answered Whiskers.

"'Fraid cat, 'fraid cat!" cried Frisky. "Who's going to be a 'fraid cat?"

"Not I," said Spottie. "Not I," said Bobby; and in two seconds they were every one scampering down to the storeroom.

They nibbled away at the jelly for a little while, but Bobby soon found a stone jar with a cover on it.

"Come over here, Ratsies," he called.

Whiskers sniffed at the cover three times. "There are grape preserves in that jar," he said at last.

"We must have some," cried Bobby."Yes, yes," squeaked Tiny; "there's nothing I like half so well as grape preserves."

"I am the biggest," said Jumbo, "so I ought to get off the cover." He pulled and pushed, and worked away until the cover came off.

"Goody, goody, goody!" squealed all the rats together, and they plunged in their paws and gobbled up the grapes so fast that their faces were soon purple and sticky with the sweet preserve.

They were not very quiet about it, either. They forgot there was some one else in the house.

Suddenly Listen pricked up his ears. "Ratsies," he whispered, "I hear a noise."

And, sure enough, he did hear a noise; for down the cellar stairs came Nig, the big black cat.

Then how those rats did scamper! They ran this way and that, across the floor, and up the wall, and under boxes and barrels. It seemed to Nig as if the cellar were full of rats. She caught one for her dinner. It was Duncie, of course; and then there were only nine rats in the family.

They were all more careful for a little while; but young rats are very venturesome, and it wasn't many days before they wanted to go down into the pantry.

Listen said he hadn't heard a sound all the morning, and so they decided to creep down very quietly.

The truth was that Mr. and Mrs. Barnes had gone away for a month, and the house was empty; but of course the rats didn't know anything about that.

There wasn't a single crumb on the pantry shelves, so they crept into the kitchen. Whiskers gave a long sniff, and before the others knew what he was doing, he was up on a shelf behind the stove.

"Come on, brothers and sisters," he squealed. "Here is something that smells good. It seems to be on the end of little sticks, but we can gnaw it off."

"Of course we can," cried Jumbo. "Let's all get to work." He tossed the matches around on the shelf, and the nine rats went to work with a will.

Suddenly there was a hot little flame. Spot's eye-teeth were very sharp, and he had lighted the phosphorus on the end of his match. The flame lighted another match, and a little fire was soon burning merrily.

It happened that Mr. Barnes had left a pile of old papers on the shelf beside the matches. They quickly took fire, and the frightened rat children fled in terror to the attic.

"Oh, Mother! Oh, Father!" they screamed, "something dreadful has happened in the kitchen!"

"There was a bright light, and a queer smell that choked us," panted Whiskers.

Father Rat understood at once that there was a fire. He scolded the nine young rats for being in the kitchen at all. "We are in great danger," he said. "We must give up this home, and try to save our lives. I can smell the smoke now. Hurry, children, hurry!"

Luckily rats don't have to pack up their clothes or throw their furniture out of the window. They escaped with their lives; but the old farmhouse was burned to the ground, all because Mr. Barnes had left the matches on the shelf beside the papers.

Where did Father Rat build his nest?

Why do rats prefer such places for their home?

What food did the young rats find in the storeroom?

What did they find in the kitchen?

What did they do with the matches?

What happened? Why?

How should this fire have been avoided?

Rats and mice are attracted to places where they can obtain food, such as barns where grain is kept, rooms where food is stored or where refuse is thrown. Buildings, so far as possible, should be made "rat-proof." To insure safety, matches should be kept in tin cans, metal boxes, or jars.