"You'll never catch it in there. Have to wait till we unload again."

"Stupid dog! Stop that racket!"

"I'll get him."

The terrier went away backwards, because the farmer's wife had to drag him by his back legs before she could pick him up, then the farmer and the other men went on with their job of loading the truck.

Potato crouched in the dark, wondering what to do. His heart was going faster than he believed a heart could go, and his nose was full of a strange new smell. It was a musty odor, like dust and carpet and mouldy paper all mixed together, but he didn't know what these things were so he just though "musty smell."

He waited in the dark, while the truck filled up with shapes and sounds, then the back of the truck closed and the engine started. Potato heard people talking, and doors slamming, then the whole black world he was in lurched and wobbled under his feet like he was standing on a trembling cow.

"I think I must be going for a ride somewhere?" thought Potato, "I hope it isn't to Cat City or Terrier City!" (He thought this because he had been brought up to believe there were two mouse-type hells, where bad mice went, both of them full of either cats or terriers.) But he decided he was really quite a good mouse, so he expected to go to Mouse City instead.

For many minutes (or mouse-hours) the truck rumbled along, and Potato stayed hidden in his musty place, and thought about life. He was sorry about many things. His poor mother and father would think he had been eaten by a cat, and he had not had time to wish them farewell and all the best. They would miss him. He imagined his mother counting her children in the evening and finding only three left.

"I will have to have more babies!" she would squeak.

"No problem," his father would say.

And Potato thought about the many wonderful things he had enjoyed in the country. The sunny days, when he had lain in the sun and slept, while his sister Esmeralda kept watch; the bits of bar-b-que left in the garden after the humans and the dog and the cats had had their share; the newly bagged wheat in the barn which poured out when he had nibbled a hole; the walnuts which fell every year . . . yes, he would miss all these things.