Trouble getting my Logitech USB Wheelmouse to load

[gentooner]

Hello Y'all. I have a Gateway Solo 5300 Laptop which has had its share of Linux/BSD installs on it, but for some reason I cannot get my USB mouse to load in Gentoo. I read through the instructions on how to get this setup, but I'm stuck on this step:

The first thing that has to be done is the installation of the kernel modules. The modules that will be needed for a USB mouse to work are usbmouse, mousedev, hid, usbcore, usb-uhci, and input. After the necessary kernel configuration is done, insmod the modules.

How do I load these modules into the kernel without recompiling?

When I unplug/replug my mouse, I see this in the kernel log:

hub.c: new USB device 00:07.2-1, assigned address 3
: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB Mouse] on usb1:3.0

there are no entires in /dev/input. I think that the step I'm missing is the loading of Kernel modules, but again I'm clueless in this regard.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!