Chapter 25

STUBBORN AS EVER

FARMER GREEN hadn't finished ploughing his first furrow before Mr. Blackbird and Grandfather Mole began breakfasting on the angleworms that the plough turned up.

Very soon Mr. Blackbird began to regret his bargain with Grandfather Mole, for Grandfather was even a greater eater than Mr. Blackbird had supposed. Mr. Blackbird began to be afraid that there wouldn't be worms enough left for himself.

"This is a fine place to dig," he remarked to Grandfather Mole in what seemed a careless way. But he watched Grandfather Mole narrowly, with a grin on his face, to see what the old chap would do.

And after that Grandfather Mole couldn't resist burrowing in the loose earth now and then. It pleased Mr. Blackbird to see him amuse himself in that fashion, because while he was digging Grandfather Mole lost his chance at a good many angleworms. They found their way quickly down Mr. Blackbird's throat. And it was not long before he was in the best of spirits.

Day after day while the spring ploughing went on, the strange pair followed the plough together. And since Grandfather Mole spent more than half the time in digging, Mr. Blackbird felt that on the whole their bargain had proved a good one.

When Farmer Green had finished the last furrow in the field Mr. Blackbird told Grandfather Mole that the ploughing had come to an end.

"And now"--he said--"now it's your turn to carry out your part of the bargain. I showed you where the food was plentiful; and it's time for you to begin furnishing me twenty fat angleworms a day."

Grandfather Mole was amazed. There hadn't been a word said about the number of angleworms he was to supply Mr. Blackbird.

"Twenty!" he exclaimed. "Nobody said 'twenty!'"

"That's so," said Mr. Blackbird. "It was forty."

Grandfather Mole was staggered. But he didn't dare object again, for fear Mr. Blackbird would double the number once more and make it eighty.

"Agreed!" he cried. "And I'll have them ready for you at midnight regularly."

"Midnight!" Mr. Blackbird repeated after him, in great surprise. "Nothing was said about 'midnight!'"

"That's so!" Grandfather Mole admitted. "It was one o'clock in the morning." And in spite of everything Mr. Blackbird said, Grandfather Mole wouldn't change the time. Everybody knew that he was very stubborn.

"A hundred angleworms in the middle of the night wouldn't do me any good," Mr. Blackbird complained. "I'm always asleep at that time."

"You'd better change your habits," Grandfather Mole replied. "You ought to be glad to change your hours for sleep, if it would make things easier for you."

Now that was very like the sort of remark that Mr. Blackbird himself had once made to Grandfather Mole. But coming from Grandfather Mole the suggestion did not please him. He even lost his temper. And he told Grandfather Mole that he was the queerest person in all Pleasant Valley.

But that speech did not trouble Grandfather Mole.

"It's everybody else that's queer--and not I!" he declared.

THE END.

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