The moment I presented myself at the window, there was an outburst of cheering, so sturdy that the windows rattled before it. A tap at my door called me in another direction. It was the elder baron!
“Haste! little baron!” he cried eagerly “descend to the castle platform, the people are beside themselves with joy! Canst thou catch their cries? Not a mole, nor a mouse, nor a squirrel is alive on the broad acres of thy estate. I say “thy” because it is justly thine! Thou hast saved it from utter ruin. Henceforth for the few years which kind Providence may will that I should tarry with thee, let it be as thy guest.”
“Nay, nay, baron!” I replied laughingly, “that may not be! Till thou sleepest with the noble dead of our long and honored line, thou art master here!”
I pressed his hand reverently to my lips and sent him to talk to the people until I should be ready to take my place at his side.
I can well fancy how impatient the reader is to hear something more about the manner in which I rid my ancestral estate of these noisome pests. With regard to the meadow-mice that needs no explanation, but, the disappearance of the moles and ground-squirrels seems somewhat mysterious.
Well and good. I’ll make it clear! Gentle reader, if you had been as close a student of the natures and habits of these animals as I, you could have done the same thing yourself. You must know, then, that the mole’s body bears about the same relation to his forefeet, as a boiler does to a steam engine, which is admirably adjusted in all its parts, working smoothly and noiselessly, like a thing of life—polished and beautiful in all its bearings and put together so skillfully that no human thought could better it. That is to say, the only wonderful thing about a mole is his hand.
That is a delight to a student of natural history.
I have sat for hours and studied the marvelous shape of this hand. And strange though it may seem to you, no one knows better than the mole himself, that therein lies his hold on life.
You’ll bear in mind, that I caused the nails to be clipped off the forefeet of the hundred moles, close to the flesh, and then turned them loose. In other words, without absolutely destroying their marvellous hands, I completely destroyed their usefulness.
Now another thing you must be taught, that in the busy communities of these little animals, there are no sluggards. Every one must work. Only one thing stops him from using his hands.