The Tale of Grandfather Mole | Page 8

a smaller one."
Such a suggestion only made Mrs. Robin pull all the harder.
"Grandfather Mole wants all the big ones himself," she would splutter as soon as she and her husband were where Grandfather Mole couldn't listen to what she said. And then, probably, Jolly Robin would laugh and tell her not to mind, for there ought to be worms enough for everybody.
More than once, when Grandfather Mole had advised her to "try a smaller one," Mrs. Robin had declared afterward that she wished she could catch the biggest angleworm in the whole garden, just to spite old Grandfather Mole and teach him that other people had their rights, as well as he.
"Well, well!" Jolly Robin always exclaimed with a laugh. "Well, well! Perhaps some day you will find the grandfather of all the angleworms!"

XI
SURPRISING GRANDFATHER MOLE
SOMEHOW Grandfather Mole heard that Mrs. Robin hoped to capture the biggest angleworm in the garden. So the very next time he happened to find her at work there he offered her another bit of unsought advice. And Mrs. Robin liked it no better than any other of Grandfather Mole's counsels.
"Don't waste your valuable time looking for the biggest angleworm in the garden!" he told her. "I've caught him already."
Well, for once Mrs. Robin almost said something tart to the old gentleman. But she checked herself in time; not by biting her tongue, however, but by clapping her bill upon a fat bug that was trying to hide under a potato-top. And away she flew to her nest, leaving Grandfather Mole to talk to the air, if he wished.
"She went off without thanking me," he muttered. To be sure, he hadn't seen Mrs. Robin go, but he had heard the beat of her wings as she began her flight. He didn't know that he had barely escaped a sharp scolding.
"What do you think Grandfather Mole has just said to me?" Mrs. Robin asked her husband, whom she found at the nest feeding their children.
Jolly Robin made three guesses. But none of them was right. So his wife repeated Grandfather Mole's remarks. And as usual Jolly Robin laughed.
"I shouldn't pay any attention to what Grandfather Mole says," he advised his wife. "I should keep an eye out for big angleworms, if I were you. Grandfather Mole may be mistaken. He may have caught only the second biggest one."
What her husband said made Mrs. Robin feel better. And she declared that she would surprise Grandfather Mole yet.
Strange to say, the very next day Grandfather Mole spoke to Mrs. Robin again and told her that "there was no use trying to surprise him, so she needn't waste her valuable time trying to do it."
This news made Mrs. Robin quite speechless. She couldn't think how Grandfather Mole had happened to learn of her remark, unless her husband had been gossiping with his friends. And if that was the case, Mrs. Robin didn't mean to let anything of the kind occur again. So she went on searching for her children's breakfast and said nothing to any one about Grandfather Mole's latest bit of advice.
Mrs. Robin worked harder than ever that day. It seemed to her husband that she had eyes for nothing but worms. Certainly she paid little attention to him. So he couldn't help feeling pleased when she called to him toward evening.
He flew quickly to her side. And he saw at once that she needed his help. For Mrs. Robin had an end of a pinkish-white worm in her bill, on which she was tugging as hard as she could.
"I think it's the biggest one in the garden!" she managed to gasp. "But it simply won't come up out of the ground."
"It must be the grandfather of them all!" Jolly Robin cried. And laying hold of the worm himself, he pulled with her.
Somehow there seemed a great commotion in the loose dirt at their feet, as they struggled to get the worm out of its hiding-place. And at last, to their great delight, they felt it--saw it--coming.
Then a shower of dirt flew into their faces and both Jolly Robin and his wife tumbled over backward.
It was no worm that Mrs. Robin had found, but Grandfather Mole's hairless tail sticking out of the ground. Together they had dragged him to the surface.
And if Mrs. Robin hadn't found the grandfather of all angleworms, at least she had found Grandfather Mole.
And she had given him a surprise, too.

XII
MR. BLACKBIRD'S ADVICE
OUT of the pine woods beyond the meadow Mr. Blackbird sometimes came to breakfast in Farmer Green's garden. He claimed that he came there to look for angleworms. But those that knew him best said that he wasn't above taking an egg out of some small bird's nest. And some whispered that he had even been known to devour a nestling.
Whenever he