Kenneth Grahame

The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brushand a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes ofwhitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring wasmoving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even hisdark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was smallwonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'Oblow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waitingto put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made forthe steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive ownedby animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped andscratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled andscratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Upwe go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he foundhimself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.