Actually, Herberta enjoyed the task of taking mice to the woods. She had made those remarks to Steward mostly because she liked irritating her brother a little. The cage and a pair of heavy gloves were on a shelf in the barn where they belonged, which Herberta hoped meant that Steward was taking good care of them and not that he was neglecting to use them. As she went to the different traps, she only found five mice, so apparently her brother was emptying them regularly. The gloves protected her from the mice that tried to scratch and bite her as she moved them from the traps to the cage. The mice, of course, did not understand that she was saving their lives.