The Tale of Grandfather Mole Part 11

FOLLOWING THE PLOUGH

A GOOD many of Grandfather Mole's neighbors sneered at him, and said he was queer. Mr. Blackbird was one of these scoffers. Though he was a lazy scamp, he always managed to look sleek and well fed. And he liked the same fare that Grandfather Mole did.

"You're a goose to work so hard for your food," Mr. Blackbird jeered one fine spring day as he sat on the garden fence and looked down at Grandfather Mole. "You ought to change your habits. Just look at me! I get plenty to eat. And I do precious little digging for it, believe me!

I tell you, there's a better way than yours!"

Naturally, Grandfather Mole couldn't look at Mr. Blackbird. But he raised his head in his odd fashion.

"What's that?" he inquired. "What's a better way than mine?"

But Mr. Blackbird was in no hurry to tell all he knew.

"Suppose," he said, "I should explain my method to you. You could follow it for some weeks and live well without much trouble. And then--when the spring ploughing is finished--I should want you to supply me with angleworms for the same length of time. You know, you can't expect me to give away my secret for nothing."

"But I _like_ to dig," Grandfather Mole replied. "You may have noticed that I am built for that sort of work."

What Grandfather Mole said was true. His drill-like nose, his powerful fore-legs and big, strong feet all served to make him the fastest digger in Pleasant Valley.

Mr. Blackbird regarded him with a sly smile. "You seem to be built for _eating_, too," he observed.

Grandfather Mole soon confessed that Mr. Blackbird's mention of angleworms had made him so hungry that he was ready to promise to do as Mr. Blackbird had proposed.

So Mr. Blackbird cried that it was a bargain.

"And now," he said, "listen carefully while I whisper the secret, for I don't want everybody to hear it.... I follow the plough," he explained.

"It turns up a great quant.i.ty of angleworms. The only work I have to do is to pick 'em up with my bill."

Somehow Grandfather Mole did not appear as delighted as Mr. Blackbird had expected.

"How can I follow the plough when I can't see where it's going?" he asked.

"Silly!" Mr. Blackbird jeered. "You can find your way along a furrow, can't you?"

Grandfather Mole thought he could do that. "But you're forgetting Henry Hawk!" he reminded Mr. Blackbird. "Farmer Green ploughs in the daytime.

And Henry Hawk might see me."

"He wouldn't be likely to notice you if you crept along the bottom of a furrow," Mr. Blackbird a.s.sured Grandfather Mole. "Anyhow, I'll be there.

And I'll warn you if Henry Hawk appears in the sky."

Grandfather Mole was relieved. And Mr. Blackbird told him to be ready the next morning.

XXV

STUBBORN AS EVER

FARMER GREEN hadn't finished ploughing his first furrow before Mr.

Blackbird and Grandfather Mole began breakfasting on the angleworms that the plough turned up.

Very soon Mr. Blackbird began to regret his bargain with Grandfather Mole, for Grandfather was even a greater eater than Mr. Blackbird had supposed. Mr. Blackbird began to be afraid that there wouldn't be worms enough left for himself.

"This is a fine place to dig," he remarked to Grandfather Mole in what seemed a careless way. But he watched Grandfather Mole narrowly, with a grin on his face, to see what the old chap would do.

And after that Grandfather Mole couldn't resist burrowing in the loose earth now and then. It pleased Mr. Blackbird to see him amuse himself in that fashion, because while he was digging Grandfather Mole lost his chance at a good many angleworms. They found their way quickly down Mr.

Blackbird's throat. And it was not long before he was in the best of spirits.

Day after day while the spring ploughing went on, the strange pair followed the plough together. And since Grandfather Mole spent more than half the time in digging, Mr. Blackbird felt that on the whole their bargain had proved a good one.

When Farmer Green had finished the last furrow in the field Mr.

Blackbird told Grandfather Mole that the ploughing had come to an end.

"And now"--he said--"now it's your turn to carry out your part of the bargain. I showed you where the food was plentiful; and it's time for you to begin furnishing me twenty fat angleworms a day."

Grandfather Mole was amazed. There hadn't been a word said about the _number_ of angleworms he was to supply Mr. Blackbird.

"Twenty!" he exclaimed. "n.o.body said 'twenty!'"

"That's so," said Mr. Blackbird. "It was forty."

Grandfather Mole was staggered. But he didn't dare object again, for fear Mr. Blackbird would double the number once more and make it eighty.

"Agreed!" he cried. "And I'll have them ready for you at midnight regularly."

"Midnight!" Mr. Blackbird repeated after him, in great surprise.

"Nothing was said about 'midnight!'"

"That's so!" Grandfather Mole admitted. "It was one o'clock in the morning." And in spite of everything Mr. Blackbird said, Grandfather Mole wouldn't change the time. Everybody knew that he was very stubborn.

"A hundred angleworms in the middle of the night wouldn't do me any good," Mr. Blackbird complained. "I'm always asleep at that time."

"You'd better change your habits," Grandfather Mole replied. "You ought to be glad to change your hours for sleep, if it would make things easier for you."

Now that was very like the sort of remark that Mr. Blackbird himself had once made to Grandfather Mole. But coming from Grandfather Mole the suggestion did not please him. He even lost his temper. And he told Grandfather Mole that he was the queerest person in all Pleasant Valley.

But that speech did not trouble Grandfather Mole.

"It's everybody else that's queer--and not I!" he declared.

THE END

SLEEPY-TIME TALES