When my husband’s grandparents inhabited a Kansas homestead, they built a small three-room house with a small upstairs. At the bottom of the stairway was a small landing, and there they kept their eggs in a box.
One night Grandma was awakened by a noise. “Bump! bump! bump!” it went. She thought it was a loose board hitting the house, blown by the wind. Several nights later she was awakened again by the same sound. She woke her husband who got a lamp and tried to locate the noise.
It seemed to come from the stairwell, so Granddad opened the door carefully. What do you think he saw?
A rat lying on his back was holding an egg on his belly with his feet, and another rat was pulling him up the stairs by the tail.
The next morning Grandma went upstairs to see if she could find where the rats were putting the eggs. Behind a trunk she found more than 50 eggs, not one of them broken. She also found a bushel basket of empty eggshells.
Mrs. Audrey Troester
Parsons, Kansas
Back in 1955 a call went out from the editors of the then Capper’s Weekly asking for readers to send in articles on true pioneers. Hundreds of letters came pouring in from early settlers and their children, many now in their 80s and 90s, and from grandchildren of settlers, all with tales to tell. So many articles were received that a decision was made to create a book, and in 1956, the first My Folks title – My Folks Came in a Covered Wagon – hit the shelves. Nine other books have since been published in the My Folks series, all filled to the brim with true tales from Capper’s readers, and we are proud to make those stories available to our growing online community.
