Under one of the oaks sat Red Ben. This new feel of the air and ground, after many hot, dry days and nights, had awakened in him too a longing to play or rather, perhaps, a longing to have someone to play with. Three miserable, lonely days had passed since he lost his mother, three nights of watching and waiting and hoping for her return.
Now he could find nothing better to do than watch the other creatures enjoying themselves in the moonlight. Already a few acorns were sweet enough to be eaten by the little animals that gnaw, and already the hunters, knowing this, were wandering from tree to tree searching for any little nut eater that was unwary enough to be caught.
So still was Red Ben that the others scarcely noticed him. One tiny shrew mouse after another went skipping by, in their search for insects; sometimes one would burrow swiftly under the leaves and come out at quite another spot. Restless little creatures they were, with long noses and eyes so small they could scarcely be seen.
The Mole
If they had flat front feet like those of the mole, and were not the tiniest little furry creatures in the woods, they would often be taken for moles. Their fur is almost the same.
The mole, living entirely in his narrow burrows under the ground, has no need for eyes and so has lost the use of those nature first gave him; the shrew, living partly above the ground but mostly in burrows, needs to see a little, and so has very small eyes; the active deer mouse which scorns burrowing and usually lives in hollow trees like the squirrels, needs sharp eyes and so has immense ones.
To protect his big eyes from twigs and briars in the dark, Deer Mouse has a regular fence of whiskers, while Shrew’s little eyes only need a few small whiskers and old Mole needs no whiskers at all.
Deer Mouse