The Rat in the Wardrobe
A lady’s attempt to light a dark closet leads to a terrifying, fire-starting encounter with a persistent rodent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A prominent lady living on Washington Boulevard went to a closet the other day to get a dress. The closet was as dark as could be, and the lady, as might be expected, struck a match. As she opened the door, she saw the glaring eyes of a large animal with whiskers the size of a man’s. Dropping the blazing match on a handle of clothes, she hastily shut the door and began to scream. She could tell by the cracking of the flames and the smoke which was pouring out of the keyhole in the door that silks and satins were ablaze; though the loss of those garments was not to be mourned after such a narrow escape from the teeth of the ferocious rodent. It was the fear that the house would burn down that caused the lady to scream, but, as good fortune would have it, the head of the house appeared on the scene just in time to prevent the flames from spreading beyond the closet. The lady lost her winter wraps and some bonnets, but, thanks to a prompt alert, she escaped the fangs of the mouse.
“She saw the glaring eyes of a large animal with whiskers the size of a man’s.”
While framed as a humorous 'local legend' in 1886, this story touches on the constant peril of fire in the wood-frame housing of the era. The anxiety about one's home burning down due to a small, avoidable accident remains a primal fear for urban residents in every decade.
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