“No,” answered Tommy Smith; for he had not learnt to, yet.
“Dear me,” said the mother mole, “you cannot swim, or dig, or drain the ground, and I am so much smaller and can do all three, besides a great many other things. But then I am a mole.”
“I didn’t say that I couldn’t dig,” Tommy Smith said. “I can, a little, only I do it with a spade. I mean a real spade,” he added. “Of course, I can’t do it with my hands.”
“What stupid hands!” said the mole. “Why, what can they be good for? But are you sure you could dig properly, even if you had a spade? Do you think you could do anything useful now? For instance, could you dig a well?”
“I shouldn’t like to do it all by myself,” said Tommy Smith; “it would take me a very long time. But I don’t suppose you dig wells either.”
“Oh, don’t you!” said the mole; “then how do you think we get our water to drink when the weather is dry? Of course, if we have a pond or a ditch near us we can easily make a tunnel to the edge of it, but it is not every mole who is so fortunate as to live by the waterside. Those who do not, have to dig deep pits for the water to run into; for I must tell you that there is always water to be found in the earth, if only you dig deep enough for it. If you make a hole which goes right down into the ground, very soon the water will begin to trickle into it through the sides and the bottom, and then, of course, it is a well. I wish you could see some of our wells. They are so nicely made, and sometimes they are brim full.”
“So you have real wells with water in them!” cried Tommy Smith; for it seemed to him so very funny that moles should have wells as well as men.
“To be sure, we have,” said the mole; “and I think it is very clever of us to have thought of it.”
“Yes, it is indeed,” said Tommy Smith; “and I begin to think that all the animals are clever.”