Filial Duty
A surgeon's mate on board a ship relates that while lying one evening
awake he saw a rat come into his berth, and after well surveying the
place, retreat with the greatest caution and silence. Soon after it
returned, leading by the ear another rat, which it left at a small
distance from the hole which they entered. A third rat joined this kind
conductor; they then foraged about, and picked up all the small scraps of
biscuit; these they carried to the second rat, which seemed blind, and
remained in the spot where they had left it, nibbling such fare as its
dutiful providers, whom the narrator supposes were its offspring, brought
to it from the more remote parts of the floor.