THE MOLE
“_If we’re only contented, some cause we shall find
To be thankful: the mole thought it nice to be blind._”
THE next walk that Tommy Smith took was over some fields where there
were a great many mole-hills. Of course, Tommy Smith had often seen
mole-hills before, but I am not sure if he had ever seen a mole; for a
mole, as you know, lives underneath the ground, and does not often come
up to the top of it. So, when he saw a little black thing scrambling
about in the grass, he cried out, “Oh! whatever is that?” and ran to it
and picked it up.
“You won’t _hurt_ me, I know,” said the mole (for it was one)—“and I
don’t mind your _looking_ at me.” You see Tommy Smith was getting a
much better boy to animals, now that they had told him something about
themselves, and the animals were beginning to find this out, and were
not so frightened of him as they used to be.
Tommy Smith looked at the mole, and stroked it as it lay in his hand,
and then he said, “Why, what a funny little black thing you are.”
“Little!” said the mole; “I don’t know what you mean by that. I am much
bigger than the mouse or the shrew-mouse. You don’t expect me to be as
big as the rat, do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Tommy Smith, “but, you know, the rat is not so
very big.”
“He is as big as he requires to be, I suppose,” said the mole, “and so
am I. I have never felt too small in all my life, and I wonder that you
should think me so. Why, look at those great hills of earth which I
have flung up all over the fields. I am big enough to have made those,
anyhow, and strong enough too. And look, how large and high they are.”
“But are they so very high?” said Tommy Smith. “Why, I step over them
quite easily.”
“Dear me, that seems very wonderful,” said the mole. “But I advise you
not to do it often, for it must be a great exertion, and you might hurt
yourself. But you must not think that because _you_ are very big, _I_
am very small. That would be very conceited.”
Tommy Smith saw that he had not said the right thing, so he tried to
think of something to say that the mole would like better. “Oh,” he
said at last, “what a very pretty, soft coat you have! I like it very
much, indeed.”
“Yes; feel it,” said the mole. “It is a very handsome fur; and I can
tell you something about it which is curious.”
“What is that?” said Tommy Smith.
“Why, you may stroke it whichever way you like,” answered the mole,
“without hurting me. It is not every animal that has a coat like
_that_. There is the cat, poor thing! If you stroke her fur one way,
she is very pleased and begins to purr; but if you stroke it the other
way, it hurts her, and she does not like it at all. That is because her
hair is long and lies all one way. Now my hair is short, and it does
not lie any way.”
“I suppose you mean that it does not point either towards your head or
your tail,” said Tommy Smith.
“Yes, that is what I mean,” said the mole. “Instead of that, it sticks
straight up, and when you stroke it, it moves whichever way your hand
moves, without making me feel at all uncomfortable.”
“That is a very nice fur to have,” said Tommy Smith. “Then, I suppose
that sometimes if you were burrowing, and you wanted to go backwards
for a little way, it would not hurt you to do so.”
“Not at all,” said the mole. “Now the poor cat could not do that. She
could not go backwards in a burrow, because it would rub all her hair
up the wrong way.”
“But cats don’t burrow,” said Tommy Smith.
“Of course not,” said the mole. “They know that they would not be able
to, so they don’t try. They are poor things.”
Tommy Smith could not see why cats should be poor things because they
didn’t burrow, but the mole seemed quite sure of it, and he did not
like to contradict him. “I suppose, Mr. Mole,” he said, “that you are
made for burrowing.”
“Yes, I am,” said the mole, “and I can do it better than any other
animal in the world. You see, I have a pair of spades to help me, and I
dig with both of them at the same time.”
“A pair of spades!” cried Tommy Smith in surprise. “Why, where are
they? I don’t see them.”
“Where are they?” said the mole; “why, here they are, to be sure,” and
he stretched out his two little front feet, and moved them about.
“Ah, now I see what you mean,” said Tommy Smith, and he bent down his
head and began to look at them more closely.
The mole might well have called his feet spades, for they were shaped
something like them, and he used them to dig with,—which is what
spades are used for. They were short and broad, with five little toes,
and each toe had a very strong claw at the end of it. These funny
little feet stuck out on each side of the mole’s body, and they were
so very close to the body that they looked as if they had been sewn on
to it. There did not seem to be any leg belonging to them at all. Of
course there _were_ legs, and very strong ones too, but they were so
short, and so hidden under the skin, that Tommy Smith could not see
them, although he felt them directly. The hind legs and feet were much
smaller, and not nearly so strong, which, the mole said, was because
they had not so much work to do. Between them there was a very short
tail, just long enough, Tommy Smith thought, to take hold of and lift
the mole up by. But he did not do this, in case he should be offended.
“Well,” said the mole, after Tommy Smith had looked at him for a little
while, “what do you think of me? I hope you think me handsome.”
“Yes, I think you are,” Tommy Smith answered, though he did not feel
quite sure of this. “At anyrate, your fur is handsome, for it is like
velvet.”
“Yes,” said the mole; “and, do you know, I am sometimes called the
little gentleman in the black velvet coat.”
“It is not quite black,” said Tommy Smith. “There is a greyish colour
in it too. I think it would look very pretty if it was made into
something. Oh, Mr. Mole,” he cried all of a sudden, “now I remember
that I have heard people talk about moleskin waistcoats!”
At this the mole gave a little squeak, and jumped quite out of Tommy
Smith’s hand, and then he began to burrow into the ground as fast as
he could, and this was very fast indeed, so that before Tommy Smith
had got over his surprise, he was almost out of sight. “Oh, Mr. Mole,”
he cried, “do come back!” but the mole was very angry, and would not
consent to for some time.
“If I do,” he said at last, “you must promise me never to talk in that
way again.”
“Oh, I never will,” said Tommy Smith. “I quite forgot who I was talking
to.”
“Moleskin waistcoats, indeed!” said the mole. “I think the people who
wear them are very wicked people. They never think how many poor little
moles must be killed only to make one. I hope _you_ have never worn a
waistcoat like that?”
“Oh no,” answered Tommy Smith, “I never have. Nobody has ever given me
one.”
“I hope you never will,” said the mole; “for if you do, you will be
almost as wicked a man as a mole-catcher, and he is the wickedest
person I know of.”
“A mole-catcher!” cried Tommy Smith; “then are there men who catch
moles?”
“Oh yes, indeed there are,” said the mole. “There are men who do that
and nothing else.”
“How do they do it?” asked Tommy Smith.
“They have traps,” answered the mole, “which they put in the passages
and corridors of our great underground palaces.”
“Your houses, I suppose, you mean,” said Tommy Smith.
“I mean what I say,” said the mole. “You may live in a house, I
daresay, but I think the place that I live in is quite large and fine
enough to be called a palace, so I call it one.”
“Oh! but it cannot be so big as the house that I live in,” said Tommy
Smith.
“Well,” said the mole, “I should just like to know how long the longest
corridor in your house is.”
Tommy Smith thought to himself a little. The house he lived in was not
a very large one, for his father was not a _very_ rich man. There were
not many passages in it, and he did not think the longest of them was
long enough to be called a corridor. Still, he thought that they must
be longer than the passages of a mole’s house, and he couldn’t help
feeling rather proud as he said, “Oh! I don’t know exactly, because I
have never measured it, but perhaps it is six yards long.”
“Six yards?” cried the mole. “Do you call _that_ a corridor? Why, some
of mine are more than twenty times as long as that. You might walk over
a whole field without coming to the end of them. And how many corridors
has your house got, then?”
“Oh, I think there are three,” said Tommy Smith; but this time he
didn’t feel nearly so proud.
“Good gracious!” cried the mole. “Why, yours must be a very poor place
to live in. I wish I could show you over my palace, but you are such an
awkward size that you would never be able to get into it. My corridors
are longer than yours, but they are not nearly so high. However,
perhaps it is just as well that you can’t get into it, for if you were
once there, I am sure you would never want to go back again.”
“Perhaps, Mr. Mole,” said Tommy Smith, “as you can’t show me over it,
you will tell me what it is like.”
“Well,” said the mole, “I will; and perhaps, if you are always a good
boy, and _never_ think of wearing a moleskin waistcoat, I will show it
you some day from the outside; but that can only be when I have done
with it, and am going to build a new one, for I should have to break
open the roof for you to see into it. Well, then, the principal part of
my palace is called the keep, or fortress,—_I_ call it the fortress.
It is very large, and the roof goes up into a beautiful, high dome. You
know what a dome is, I suppose?”
“Oh yes,” said Tommy Smith; for once he had been to London, and he
remembered the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
“I wish you could see how high and stately it is,” said the mole. “It
goes right up into the bush ever so high.”
“You mean ‘into the air,’ I think,” said Tommy Smith.
“I mean what I say,” said the mole; “into the bush. That is why you
can’t see it.”
“Oh, but I can see it,” said Tommy Smith. “I can always find your
fortresses, Mr. Mole. I see lots of them every time I go out walking.
They are not hidden at all. Why, there they are all over the field,
and you know you told me to look at them yourself.”
The mole gave a little choky laugh. “Oh dear!” he cried, “and do you
_really_ think that _those_ are my fortresses? You are _very_ much
mistaken if you do. Why, they are only the hills that I throw up when I
am making my tunnels and corridors. All you will find if you open them
is a hole going down into one of those. Oh no; my fortress is not built
there. It is carefully hidden under a bush or the root of a tree, so
that you can’t see it, however high it is. Only the wicked mole-catcher
is able to find it, and I am very sorry he can.”
This was a great surprise to Tommy Smith, for he had always thought
that the mole lived under those little brown heaps of earth. But he
had only thought so because he had never taken any trouble to find out
about it. “I see you are cleverer than I thought, Mr. Mole,” he said;
“but I should like you to tell me something more about your palace and
fortress.”
“I told you that it was very large,” said the mole, “and that it went
up into a high dome outside. Inside, it is not nearly so high, but it
is very nice and comfortable; and the floor and the sides and ceiling
are always quite smooth and polished, for I polish them myself, and
never leave it to the servants.”
“But how do you polish them?” said Tommy Smith.
“Why, with my fur to be sure,” said the mole. “I prefer that to a piece
of wash-leather.” (He laughed again as he said this, but Tommy Smith
didn’t know what for.) “My fur, as you see, is smooth too. If you
were to walk down one of my corridors, you would be surprised to find
how hard and smooth the sides of it are. That is because I am always
running up and down them, and rubbing them with my fur.”
“But doesn’t that make you very dirty?” said Tommy Smith. “Surely the
earth must get into your fur and stay there.”
“It _never_ stays there,” said the mole with great pride. “I have a
very strong muscle which runs all along my back just under the skin,
and when I twitch that, every little piece of mould or earth that is in
my fur flies out of it again. There! now I have twitched it. Look at
me and see how clean I am, although I have only just come out of the
ground. Oh no; there is never anything in _my_ coat! It is a saying in
our family that a mole _may_ live in the dirt, but he is never _dirty_.”
“That seems very funny,” said Tommy Smith. “But tell me some more about
the fortress that you live in.”
“That is just what I was going to do,” said the mole, “but you ask so
many questions, that I am not able to get on. Now I will begin again,
and perhaps it would be better if you were to say nothing till I have
done.”
So Tommy Smith sat down on the ground to listen, and the mole went on
in these words:
“Inside my fortress there is a large room which is quite round. I call
it my bedroom or dormitory, because sometimes I go to sleep there.
There are two different ways of getting into it. One of them is by the
floor, and that is easy. But the second way is by the ceiling, and that
is much more difficult.”
“By the floor and the ceiling?” cried Tommy Smith, quite forgetting
what the mole had said. “How very funny! I get into _my_ room through
a door in one of the sides.”
“Dear me!” said the mole. “Well, I should not like to enter a room in
that way.”
“Why not?” asked Tommy Smith.
“The idea of such a thing!” said the mole. “As for doors, they are
things I don’t understand. Galleries and tunnels are what I use, and I
think them much grander.”
“But”—Tommy Smith was beginning.
“Let me get on,” said the mole. “I have two galleries inside my
fortress, an upper one and a lower one. The lower one is the largest.
It runs all round the ceiling of my bedroom. From it there are five
little passages which run up into the upper one. That goes round in a
circle too, but it is high up inside the dome of my fortress, and a
long way above the ceiling of my bedroom. So what do you think I have
done? I have made three little tunnels, which go from my upper gallery
right into the top of my bedroom. I just run down one of them, and
tumble into it through the ceiling.”
“But can’t you get into your bedroom from the lower gallery too?” asked
Tommy Smith.
“Oh no,” said the mole; “that would never do. It would be so easy;
and a mole likes to do things that are difficult. I go into my lower
gallery first, and then I go from that into my upper gallery. I can go
by five different passages, and choose which I like.”
“Five different passages! That is a lot,” cried Tommy Smith.
“Yes; and there are three more from the upper gallery into the
bedroom!” said the mole. “How many doors are there into _your_ rooms?”
“Oh, one,” said Tommy Smith.
“Only one!” said the mole. “That is very sad. Why, if I had only one
tunnel into my room I should be almost ashamed to go through it. But
then you have only a house to live in, and not a palace, as I have.”
Tommy Smith thought that this was rather a grand way of talking, and he
was just beginning, “Perhaps, if you were to see my house”—when the
mole went on with, “Of course, such a fine palace as mine ought to
have a good many fine roads leading up to it.”
“Ought it?” said Tommy Smith; “and how many has it?”
“Seven,” said the mole.
“Seven!” exclaimed Tommy Smith.
“Yes,” said the mole, “and I make them all myself. Why, how many has
yours?”
“It has only one,” said Tommy Smith, “but I think that is quite enough.”
“For a house, perhaps, it may be,” said the mole; “but _I_ should be
sorry to have to put up with it. _My palace_ has seven, and I know
some very rich moles who have eight. These are the great corridors
which some people call the high roads. Some of them run through fine
avenues of tree-roots, and, you know, a fine avenue of tree-roots has a
splendid appearance. They wind all about, and go for ever such a way,
and there are smaller corridors which run out of them on each side, and
spread all over the fields.”
“You mean _under_ the fields, Mr. Mole,” said Tommy Smith; “for, you
know, the grass grows over your corridors, and nobody can see them.”
“I am very glad they can’t,” said the mole, “or my bedroom, or my
nursery either.”
“What, have you a nursery too?” said Tommy Smith. “Why, that is just as
if you were a person.”
“Of course I have a nursery,” said the mole. “What should I do with my
children if I had not? I could not have them always in the fortress, or
playing about in the corridors. They would be quite out of place there,
and very much in the way. So I have a nursery for them, and they lie
there upon a nice warm bed, which I make myself, of young grass and
other soft things.”
“Oh, then I suppose that you are the mother mole,” said Tommy Smith.
“Yes, I am,” said the mole; “and you should call me Mrs. Mole, and not
Mr. as you have been doing; and as for my being like a person, why, I
am one, of course, and an important person too, _I_ think. Why, do you
know that I drain the land?”
“Do you really, Mrs. Mole?” said Tommy Smith; “but is not that very
difficult?”
“You would find it so, I daresay,” answered the mole, “but to me it is
quite easy.”
“How do you do it?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Why, by digging to be sure,” the mole said. “I just make my tunnels,
and my trenches, and my corridors, and then when the rain comes it runs
off into them, and doesn’t lie on the ground so long as it would if
they were not there.”
“Oh, but if the water runs into your tunnels,” said Tommy Smith, “how
is it that you are not drowned?”
“Oh, it does not stay there long enough for that,” said the mole; “and,
besides, I am a very good swimmer. Just take me up again and put me
into that little pond there, and I will show you,”—for there was a
pond not far off where some ducks and geese were swimming about. “Drive
those rude things away first,” said the mother mole, as Tommy Smith
stood with her in his hand, at the edge of the pond, just ready to drop
her in. “If they see me, they will be sure to make some rude remark,
and, indeed, there is no saying what liberties they might take.”
So Tommy Smith drove away the ducks and geese, and then dropped the
mother mole into the water, and,—would you believe it?—she swam
almost as well as if she had been a duck or a goose herself, moving all
her four little feet at a great rate, and going along very quickly. She
_did_ look so funny. She went across the pond, and then turned round
and came back again, and, as she scuttled out on to the bank, she said,
“So now you see that a mole can swim. Can _you_?”
“No,” answered Tommy Smith; for he had not learnt to, yet.
“Dear me,” said the mother mole, “you cannot swim, or dig, or drain the
ground, and I am so much smaller and can do all three, besides a great
many other things. But then _I_ am a mole.”
“I didn’t say that I couldn’t dig,” Tommy Smith said. “I can, a little,
only _I_ do it with a spade. I mean a real spade,” he added. “Of
course, I can’t do it with my hands.”
“What stupid hands!” said the mole. “Why, what _can_ they be good for?
But are you sure you could dig properly, even if you had a spade? Do
you think you could do anything useful now? For instance, could you dig
a well?”
“I shouldn’t like to do it all by myself,” said Tommy Smith; “it would
take me a very long time. But I don’t suppose _you_ dig wells either.”
“Oh, don’t you!” said the mole; “then how do you think we get our water
to drink when the weather is dry? Of course, if we have a pond or a
ditch near us we can easily make a tunnel to the edge of it, but it is
not every mole who is so fortunate as to live by the waterside. Those
who do not, have to dig deep pits for the water to run into; for I must
tell you that there is always water to be found in the earth, if only
you dig deep enough for it. If you make a hole which goes right down
into the ground, very soon the water will begin to trickle into it
through the sides and the bottom, and then, of course, it is a well.
I wish you could see some of our wells. They are so nicely made, and
sometimes they are brim full.”
“So you have real wells with water in them!” cried Tommy Smith; for it
seemed to him so very funny that moles should have wells as well as men.
“To be sure, we have,” said the mole; “and I think it is very clever of
us to have thought of it.”
“Yes, it is indeed,” said Tommy Smith; “and I begin to think that all
the animals are clever.”
“I don’t know about _that_,” said the mole; “but _we_ are.”
“Oh yes; and so is the rat, and the frog, and the peewit, and”—
“I am glad to hear it,” said the mole. “_I_ should not have thought so.”
“Oh! but they are really,” Tommy Smith went on eagerly. “Do let me tell
you how the peewit”—
“I have nothing to learn from _him_, I hope,” said the mole; “a poor
foolish bird who wastes all his time in the air.”
“Oh, but if you only knew how the mother peewit”—Tommy Smith was
beginning again.
“I should be sorry to take _her_ as an example,” said the mole sharply;
“she is a flighty thing, without solid qualities. Other animals may be
all very well in their way,” she went on, after a pause, “but they are
not _moles_, and they none of them know how to dig.”
“Oh, but the rabbit”—
“The rabbit, indeed!” cried the mole very indignantly. “Why, what can
_he_ do? He can just make a clumsy hole, and that is all. He is a mere
labourer; and I hope you do not compare him with a real artist like
myself.”
“Oh no,” said Tommy Smith; but he thought the mole was very conceited.
“Not that it is his fault,” the mole continued. “Of course, he cannot
be expected to make such wonderful places as I do. After all, what has
he got to dig with? His feet are only paws, they are not spades, as
mine are; and then he has two great big eyes for the dirt to get into,
which must be a great inconvenience to him.”
“But haven’t you eyes, too, Mrs. Mole?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Would you like to try and find them?” answered the mole. “You may, if
you like.”
So Tommy Smith knelt down on the ground and began to look all about
where he thought the mole’s eyes were likely to be, and to feel with
his fingers in the fur. But look and feel as he might, it was no use,
he couldn’t find the eyes anywhere. But, just as he was going to give
up trying, all at once he thought he saw two little black things
hardly so big as the head of a small black pin. Could those be eyes?
Tommy Smith hardly believed that they could be, for some time; they
were so _very_ small. “Are those your eyes, Mrs. Mole?” he asked at
last.
“Yes, indeed they are,” the mother mole answered; “and are they not a
beautiful pair? How difficult they are to find, and how well my fur
hides them! It would not be easy for the mould to get into _them_;
_they_ are not like those great staring things of the rabbit.”
“They are very small,” said Tommy Smith.
“I should think so!” said the mole; “and what an advantage it is to
have small eyes.”
“But can you see with them?” said Tommy Smith.
“Oh no,” said the mole; “and what an advantage it is not to be able to
see.”
Tommy Smith did not understand this at all. “The rabbit can see,” he
said, “and so can all the other animals.”
“_They_ are obliged to,” answered the mole, “and so they have to put
up with it; but a mole lives in the dark, and therefore it does not
require to see.”
“But what are eyes for, if they are not to see with?” Tommy Smith
asked. He felt sure it was a sensible question, and it seemed to him
that the mole was talking nonsense.
“They are for not getting in the way when you make tunnels in the
ground,” said the mole. “Mine never get in the way, so I know that they
are the best eyes that anyone can have.”
This was quite a new idea to Tommy Smith, and he tried to think what it
would be like to live in the ground, and to have eyes that you couldn’t
see with, and that didn’t get in the way. At last he said, “It seems to
me, Mrs. Mole, that it would be much better if you had not any eyes at
all.”
“That is a strange idea, to be sure!” said the mole. “Not have eyes,
indeed! That would be a fine thing.”
“But if you can’t see with them,” said Tommy Smith.
“What of that?” said the mole; “we have them, and so we are proud of
them. It is a saying in our family that a mole _may_ be blind, but he
has _eyes_ for all that.”
“Poor little mole,” said Tommy Smith, for though the animal seemed to
be quite happy itself, he couldn’t help feeling very sorry for it. “But
are you _quite_ blind?”
“If I am not quite, I am very nearly,” the mole answered, “and I am
thankful for _that_. I just know when it is light and when it isn’t,
which is all a mole requires to know.”
“But can’t you see me?” Tommy Smith asked.
“You, indeed!” answered the mole. “And why should I want to see you?”
“I’m afraid you _are_ blind,” Tommy Smith said quite sadly.
“At anyrate,” said the mole, “I have less seeing to do than almost any
other animal, and, when I think of that, I can’t _help_ feeling proud,
though I know I oughtn’t to be. But I think you have talked enough
about my eyes,” the mole continued. “Perhaps you would like to know
something about my teeth now. Look! there they are,” and she opened her
mouth as wide as she could, which was not very wide, for her mouth was
so small. What funny little white teeth they were, and how sharp,—as
sharp and as pointed as needles.
“Why are they so pointed?” asked Tommy Smith. “The rabbit’s teeth are
not at all like that, and the rat’s are not either.”
“It is because we eat different things,” said the mole. “Different
kinds of animals have different food, and so they have different kinds
of teeth to eat it with. Mine are nice and sharp, because they have to
bite and kill whatever they catch hold of.”
“But what is it that they have to bite and kill?” said Tommy Smith.
“Ah, you would never guess,” answered the mole. “You must know that we
moles are very brave animals, and we fight a great deal; sometimes with
each other, but mostly with great serpents which live in the ground,
although it really belongs to us.”
“Serpents?” said Tommy Smith. “Why, do you mean snakes?”
“Of course I do,” said the mole.
[Illustration: “WE MOLES ARE VERY HEROIC”]
“Snakes that live in the ground!” Tommy Smith cried. “Why, I don’t know
of any that do. The grass-snake doesn’t, or the adder either. What are
these snakes like, Mrs. Mole?”
“They are smooth and slimy,” said the mole. “They have no head, or, if
they have, it looks like another tail, and they are always crawling
through the ground, which is ours, of course, and trying to break into
our palaces.”
“Oh, but I call those worms!” said Tommy Smith.
“You may call them so if you like,” said the mole, “but _I_ call them
snakes. You should see the way I fight with them! How they writhe and
twist about when I seize them between my sharp teeth. They try hard to
get away, and they would kill me if only they could. But I am too brave
and too strong for them, so I kill _them_ instead, and eat them as
well. We moles are very heroic.”
“Do you eat anything else?” asked Tommy Smith.
“Caterpillars sometimes, and a beetle or two,” answered the mole. “But
I like snakes best of all.”
“Worms,” said Tommy Smith.
“Snakes,” said the mole. But Tommy Smith was right, the mole’s snakes
were harmless worms; but it is nice to think oneself a hero.
“Good-bye,” said the mole rather suddenly. “I am tired of talking, and
I want to have a little sleep.”
“Oh, but it is the middle of the day,” said Tommy Smith.
“What of that?” said the mole. “I feel tired, so I shall go to sleep.”
“Then do you always sleep in the daytime?” asked Tommy Smith.
“I know nothing about daytime or nighttime,” the mole answered, “and
perhaps if you lived under the ground, as I do, you would not either. I
feel tired _now_, so I shall go to sleep now. Good-bye”; and the mother
mole began to sink into the earth, and all at once she was gone,—just
as Tommy Smith was going to ask her what was the use of having such a
grand palace to live in if she was blind and couldn’t see it.
One sometimes thinks of a good question just too late to ask it.