One summer many years ago, when I needed an escape from a winter of problems and a profusion of people in my life, I rented a small, one-room cabin on the south shore of Chilmark that sat high on a bluff overlooking the ocean. Every day of that month the sun sank into the Atlantic, throwing long streamers of red-orange water back to my shore. And every morning it rose over the low hills and meadows behind my little house, creating pink and lavender wavelets rolling into the sandy beach at the foot of the cliff. I spent a lot of time sitting on the low, wraparound deck watching the sun set and rise again. I had felt battered by the illness and death of my father in January, and confused by an unhappy year of teaching. I needed solitude and rest to sort out my hurt feelings and tumultuous thoughts.

One night, as I sat curled up with a copy of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea, I heard a faint scratching sound from somewhere above. The corners of the room were in shadow, and I heard the scratching before I could see a small, furry mouse poised on a rafter at the edge of the loft. She watched me, and I watched her back. I didn’t move. She scurried along the rafter until she was over the spice rack hung above the stove on the south wall. Slowly she started down, climbing over the thyme, past the paprika, beside the oregano. She hesitated at the dill seed, sniffed the garlic salt, and then landed on top of a box of Triscuits. Dropping onto my flour canister, she surveyed the stove below her. As I watched, scarcely breathing, she stepped out onto a two-cup measure hanging from a wall hook and grasped an electric percolator cord hanging from the same hook. Head first, down and around the cord she went until she reached the top of the stove. Picking up a few toast crumbs as she crossed the enamel surface, she suddenly disappeared between the stove and the wall. Investigating later, I found a small hole in the wall that led outdoors. Although I waited quietly for a while, Mouse didn’t return. I was sorry, for she had provided a pleasant diversion in my solitude.

I saw her again during the week. She appeared one evening in the corner by the old Franklin stove, and on another occasion she ran across the corner table that separated the two built-in couches, one of which served as my bed. I felt as though I were sharing the place with her, and there were no demands that I rid the house of her, as might be made by a human housemate. She came and went, quietly accepting me; in gratitude, I grew less compulsive about cleaning up all the crumbs of my daily existence. We were congenial companions – she didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother her.

One night, however, I found she had been busy behind the scenes. A second, very small mouse followed her along the living-room rafter. It was pearl gray with beady, black eyes, a replica of its mother. It seemed unsteady, but curious, and it was this second mouse – this tiny, guileless creature – that almost upset the equilibrium of the rest of my month in the cabin by the sea.

One evening I had company: human company. Three friends were visiting for dessert and coffee, and as we sat chatting – they on the two couches which met at the square table in the corner, and I on a chair by the stove – I noticed the very small mouse creeping along the rafter, stopping now and then to lean over and peer down at us. I acted as if I had not seen her, believing that my friends would not share my friendly feelings toward the mouse. I tried not to lose the drift of the conversation as I watched, ever more concerned, as the unsteady mouse came closer and closer to joining the party.

Right above the table the little mouse paused, leaned over as though to join in the conversation, and then, as I gasped, tumbled over the edge, and landed with a thud right on the table. Before my guests could move, I scooped up the mouse, which was stunned by the fall, and which lay there, waiting for someone to leap up and crush it with my copy of Joy of Cooking, which stood among other, smaller books on the table. I apologized for the interruption and hurried outdoors with the mouse huddled within my hands. I set it on the deck, after admonishing it for its foolish and dangerous behavior. Then I returned to my guests, who were by now laughing, nervous and relieved about an experience they would, no doubt, relate at their next cocktail party.

Unfortunately, Little Mouse did not learn from its unsuccessful experience about balancing on the rafter. A couple of nights later I was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by something falling onto my bed. Leaping up, imagining rats and bats, I turned my flashlight onto the bed covers, and there was Little Mouse between the pillow and the wall, looking bewildered. Again I caught the tiny creature and put it outside, all the time scolding and reminding it how dangerous rafter excursions might prove to be. I went back to bed wondering whether it had been born up near the roof, like a bird in a nest. Was it using the beams to try to learn how to walk in a straight line? Was it trying to get its rafter legs? Why, at this point in its young life, was it not better at either one?

The next night was the last straw. At 2 a.m. Little Mouse again fell off the rafter above my bed, this time landing in my hair. It frightened me out of the first pleasant dream I’d had all month, and again I shone the light around until I found it crawling beneath my bedcovers. I grabbed it, not so gently this time, and once more, outside we went. Deciding it was time it learned to fend for itself, I walked down the hill and along the dirt road until I was out of sight of my cabin. In the fading moonlight I set it down, explained that I just couldn’t spend my nights this way, wished it luck, and ran back to my house.

I never saw Little Mouse again, but for the final week of my month by the sea, Mother Mouse and I re-established our former, happy relationship. If she felt any regret or resentment over the exile of her offspring, she did not show it, perhaps realizing that this was how things often worked out for unsteady mice. She knew to keep a comfortable distance by day, and I knew to leave a few crumbs on the table at night. It worked.