Happy Jack Squirrel snickered. “Peter is always discovering something,” said he. “He is a great little discoverer. Probably he has just found out that the only way to get anywhere on time is to start soon enough.”
“No such thing!” declared Peter indignantly. “You—”
“Never mind him, Peter,” interrupted Old Mother Nature soothingly. “What was it you discovered?”
“That the very one we are to learn about is only a little way from here this very minute. Miner the Mole is at work on the Green Meadow; close to the edge of the Green Forest,” cried Peter eagerly. “I thought perhaps you would want to-”
“Have this morning's lesson right there where we can at least see his works if not himself,” interrupted Old Mother Nature again. “That is fine, Peter. We will go over there at once. It is always better to see things than to merely hear about them.”
So Peter led the way to where he had stumbled over that little ridge on his way to school. It was longer than when he had left it, but even as the others crowded about to look, the earth was pushed up and it grew in length. Old Mother Nature stooped and made a little hole in that ridge. Then she put her lips close to it and commanded Miner to come out. She spoke softly, pleasantly, but in a way that left no doubt that she expected to be obeyed.
She was. Almost at once a queer, long, sharp nose was poked out of the little hole she had made, and a squeaky voice asked fretfully, “Do I have to come way out?”
“You certainly do,” replied Old Mother Nature. “I want some of your friends and neighbors to get a good look at you, and they certainly can't do that with only that sharp nose of yours to be seen. Now scramble out here. No one will hurt you. I will keep you only a few minutes. Then you can go back to your everlasting digging. Out with you, now!”
While the others gathered in a little circle close about that hole there scrambled into view one of the queerest little fellows in all the Great World. Few of them had ever seen him close to before. He was a stout little fellow with the softest, thickest, gray coat imaginable. He was about six inches long and had a funny, short, pinkish-white, naked tail that at once reminded Peter of an Angleworm.
His head seemed to be set directly on his shoulders, so that there was no neck worth mentioning. His nose was long and sharp and extended far beyond his mouth. Neither ears nor eyes were to be seen.