CHAPTER I.
THE RIVER BANK
The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, springcleaning
his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on
ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he
had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his
black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the
air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark
and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It
was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the
floor, said `Bother!\' and `O blow!\' and also `Hang spring-cleaning!\' and
bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something
up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little
tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned
by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped
and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and
scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws
and muttering to himself, `Up we go! Up we go!\' till at last, pop! his snout
came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass
of a great meadow.
`This is fine!\' he said to himself. `This is better than whitewashing!\'
The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow,
and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of
happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all
his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without
its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the
hedge on the further side.