JUNE 5: The New Mole Home
“Mr. Mole was going to get married,” said daddy, “and he wanted to build a fine, fine home for the new Mrs. Mole. So he went forth into the nicest meadow he could find, and there, just at the end of it, near an old fence, Mr. Mole started to burrow into the ground.
“You know the Moles live underground almost all of the time, and there make their homes. Just near the fence Mr. Mole began to dig and dig. First of all he made a long, long tunnel, a funny underground passage which he called the Drive-Way of his Home!
“Of course the callers of Mr. and Mrs. Mole could hardly drive along this tunnel, but they could run and scamper along, and they liked to call it by a big name like Drive-Way.
“And after the long, long tunnel Mr. Mole started in to make a fine house out of the earth. He made lovely rooms, one for Mrs. Mole, one for himself, one for the little Mole who was to do the cooking and housekeeping and several guest rooms. For, as you can imagine, Mr. Mole was very fond of company. In addition to all this Mr. Mole built a very fine picture gallery—made in tiers of earth and mud—long rows and rows of it. On these he put pictures of his family which he made out of earth, too. Of course, Mr. Mole made every member of his family look just alike, but that didn’t make any difference. The Moles are not very fussy if their pictures aren’t very well taken, for they can’t bother to look at pictures much of the time.
“You see their eyes are very small and they like to look at things more worth while—such as food and corn starting to grow in the ground and all the things the farmers plant. They love farms, you know, where wonderful vegetables are planted deep down in the earth. They are very apt to burrow along and make paths so they can walk to a farmland and have a feast.
“But I must tell you more about Mr. Mole’s new home. The very last thing he did was to build a beautiful throne in the picture-gallery for Mrs. Mole.
“At last it was time for her to come to her new home and Mr. Mole had invited their friends and cousins, the Mole-Crickets, to come, too. These cousins have very strangely shaped front legs with which they burrow homes just like the regular Moles, and so they are considered relations.
“‘Here we all are,’ said Mrs. Mole, and she blinked her very small eyes, while all the other Moles blinked their tiny eyes, too, and looked about them. Through the Drive-Way they ran until they came to the house with all the beautiful rooms.
“The room Mr. Mole took them to last was the picture-gallery, where Mrs. Mole sat on the throne in honor of her wedding day, and the little Mole, who cooked, brought out some of the delicious stewed vegetables she had made for the wedding feast.
“You should have heard the Moles as they looked at the pictures. They thought every picture was one of their own relatives.
“One Mole would say:
“‘Why, there’s Mama,’ and another would say:
“‘Why, no, that’s not your Mama, that’s my Papa.’ However, they didn’t get in the least angry about the pictures—in fact, they thought it very clever of Mr. Mole to make pictures which looked like all their relations at the same time.
“‘But you haven’t noticed my wedding dress,’ said Mrs. Mole. ‘I think my new Home is S-C-R-U-M-P-T-I-O-U-S, which means beautiful in case any of you little Moles don’t understand the word I’ve said in honor of the day. And now that you’ve all admired my home, please admire my dress.’
“For the first time the Moles noticed that Mrs. Mole had attached to her tiny ears little earrings made of mud with a red berry in each, and she wore a necklace to match. Her dress was of dull oak leaves which Mrs. Mole had saved for a whole year to wear on her wedding day.
“‘You’re a handsome Mole,’ said Mr. Mole, ‘and I’m so proud you’re to share this home I’ve made,’ and all the other Moles grinned and ate more and more of the vegetable wedding feast to show what a good time they were having.”