A Japanese waltzing mouse once made the long trip to Wyoming by horse and stagecoach. The Wister family had come to the Cowboy State for vacation and, as part of the family, the tiny pet had been allowed to come along.
It was Owen Wister’s daughter, Fanny Kemble Wister Stokes, who shared a glimpse into life with her famous father. In her book “Owen Wister Out West,” she touched on her own adventure in Wyoming, which included her beloved waltzing mouse.
Owen Wister, author of the classic Western novel "The Virginian” and a prominent naturalist, wanted his children to experience for themselves the wild country that had captivated him nearly 30 years before.
So, in 1912, the Wister family embarked on a journey out west to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Accompanying them on the long trip was their unique companion, Psyche, a black-and-white Japanese waltzing mouse.
The four Wister children knew that she was named for the Greek goddess of beauty, but pronounced her name as “Peeshee,” and that was how she was known.
The Wister family spent the summer in Jackson Hole with Peeshee waltzing in this picturesque Wyoming landscape. When not entertaining the children, Peeshee was kept in a butter tin with holes punched in the lid for air and a wire handle for carrying.
As the summer turned to fall, the Wister family had to make the journey back East. Facing cold weather and even snow, they had to bid farewell to Jackson Hole. To keep Psyche warm during the long drive, the children took turns holding her in her tin on their laps in the buckboard. However, by the end of the day, they were having difficulties keeping her warm despite her waltzing mouse antics.
In a creative move to keep tiny Peeshee alive, Owen Wister, who was riding, placed her tin on the top of the pommel of his Mexican saddle. He had placed a hot-water bag beneath the tin and carefully balanced the waltzing mouse throughout the long ride. Despite the challenges and the mysterious source of hot water, Peeshee survived the trip back East.
Why The Waltz?
The Japanese waltzing mouse, also known as the Nankin mouse, is a black and white descendant of the house mouse. It is believed to have originated in China as a crossbreed. By the 17th century, these mice had become a popular household pet in Japan due to its peculiar habit of spinning round and round after its tail, a behavior known eventually as waltzing.
This trait was once thought to be related to a disease of the ear labyrinth. In 1902, in the science journal, Nature, Dr. K. Kishi suggested that it was likely the result of centuries of confinement in small cages. Scientists were intrigued by this tiny mouse and continue to study its antics, trying to discover just what causes the waltzing mouse to dance compulsively.
It is believed now to be a disorder that has been crossbred into the mice by accident and resulted in a sweet-tempered mouse who needs constant entertainment.
A Time magazine article in 1933 stated that the baby mouse waltzer begins to dance when it is one week old. Based on this, scientists theorized its life is a frantic quest for the balance which it cannot maintain on a horizontal plane.
Sometimes it whirls on a hind leg, sometimes runs in circles or figure-eights, always twitching, jerking, swaying its head. Occasionally an accomplished mouse varies the routine with a shuffling backstep. Sometimes the mice dance together, one spinning on a hind leg while another runs circles around it.
They like to run on treadmills, through tunnels, over bridges and up inclines.
The Popular Entertainer
The waltzing mice spectacle made its way to the Montana State Fair the same year that Peeshee was dancing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. In September 1912, the Butte Miner enthused that these swirling mice would be one of the most unique displays at the fair.
Displayed by "Billy" Gemmel, president of the Josher's club, these imported Japanese mice became a sensation. Their captivating movements, resembling the waltzing they were named for, delighted fairgoers, and showcased the mice's natural talent.
Before the State Fair, the tiny performers attracted much attention by their capers in a flower store window on West Broadway.
There were four mice and almost constantly, for hours at a time, night and day, they whirled around and around in a glass enclosed space about 3 square feet, fitted out with a teeter board and other objects that gave it the appearance of a miniature children’s playground.
Around and around the mice flew, sometimes seemingly keeping step with each other in circling little posts till their movements resembled waltzing.
The Butte Miner reported how these movements were natural to them, and that they were not trained to the dancing. From the time of one week old, waltzing mice move around in circular spaces and are much more tame than ordinary mice.
They can be turned loose in a store or other strange place and never attempt to make their escape from the top of a table or other space they are turned loose on.
Some of the saloon keepers in Butte were seriously, for a time, considering suing the flower shop because they claimed the whirling, dizzy exhibition injured their business. They claimed that some of their best customers would, after a drink or two, stop drinking when they witnessed the little whirling animals “hallucination.”
The waltzing mouse still exists today in special breeding programs or can be bred by accident. (Getty Images) 
In 1902, Abbie E.C. Lathrop of Granby, Massachusetts, bred the first mice to be used in a lab for genetic research. Lathrop began her new enterprise with two waltzing mice. (Springfield Sunday Republican, Oct. 5, 1913.) 
The waltzing mouse still exists today in special breeding programs or can be bred by accident. (Getty Images) 
A boy looks into a cage full of Japanese walzing mice in 1955. (Getty Images) 
Left: The Waltzing Mice were the highlight of the Montana State Fair in Helena in 1912. Right: The Rock River Review of Rock River, Wyoming, reported that the waltzing mouse, once as popular as goldfish, was now a thing of the past. It was nearly impossible by 1920 to find a Japanese waltzing mouse for your child. 
In 1925, the Wyoming State Tribune marveled at the Japanese waltzing mouse that was once the craze of America.
Waltzing Into Oblivion
By 1920, Peeshee and all the waltzing mice in America were becoming a creature of the past. Once as common as goldfish, they were now nearly impossible to find according to the newspapers of the day.
The Rock River Review of Rock River, Wyoming, announced solemnly that if you decided to make a jolly present to your youngest nephew, you couldn’t find a Japanese waltzing mouse in the country.
It is true, the reporter said, that the waltz is out of date in this age of shimmy shakers. But that doesn’t account for their extinction. It was his belief that the Great War, which took so many lives, reached even to the mouse world.
It was reported that according to Ed Hooey, the bird and fish man. breeders no longer raise these eccentric little creatures. Perhaps they still live in Japan, the reporter opined, where they are kept through immigration laws. But as far as this country goes, these busy pets of children are now but a memory.
By the 1930s, it seemed that only scientists were able to obtain what was once a child’s most cherished pets.
Waltzing mice are still around and made a small comeback as pets in the 1950s, but now are recognized for having a neurological disorder, not bred as pets.
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
