LOSING HIS BEARINGS
IT often happened, when Grandfather Mole came up from his home under Farmer Green's garden, that he turned straight around and went back again. Sometimes, to be sure, he ran about a bit in a bewildered way, before he disappeared. For he never felt at home in the world above; and he was always uneasy until he felt the darkness closing in around him.
So nobody thought it strange when Grandfather Mole came tumbling up amongst the turnips one day and began running blindly around the garden, zig-zagging in every direction. Nobody that saw him paid much attention to him. But at last Rusty Wren, who had come to the garden to look for worms, noticed that Grandfather Mole was quite upset over something. He didn't seem to have any notion of going back into the ground, but kept twisting this way and that, with his long nose turning here and turning there, in a manner that was unmistakably inquiring.
"What's the matter?" Rusty Wren finally asked him, for his curiosity soon got the better of him.
But Grandfather Mole didn't appear to hear. Perhaps he didn't want to answer the question.
"Have you lost something?" Rusty Wren cried.
But Grandfather Mole never stopped to reply. He never stopped running to and fro. And Rusty Wren became more curious than ever. It was plain, to him, that something unusual was afoot. And he wanted to know what it was. "Can't I help you?" he asked in his shrillest tones, flying close to Grandfather Mole and speaking almost in his ear--only Grandfather Mole had no ears, so far as Rusty Wren could see. "Can't I help you?"
"Yes, you can!" Grandfather Mole answered at last. "If you wish to help me, for pity's sake go away and keep still! I don't want the whole neighborhood to come a-running. The cat will be here the first thing we know."
Rusty Wren felt sure, then, that Grandfather Mole was in trouble. And if he was worried about Farmer Green's cat, why didn't he dig a hole for himself at once, and get out of harm's way?
Since Rusty Wren didn't know, he asked Grandfather Mole--in little more than a whisper. But Grandfather Mole only shook his head impatiently, as if to say that digging a hole wouldn't help him this time.
Meanwhile some of Rusty Wren's friends had come up to see what was going on. And talking in low tones, so that they wouldn't attract the cat's attention, they agreed with him that there was some mystery about Grandfather Mole. But not one of them knew what it could be.
"He's lost something!" Rusty Wren declared.
"There's no doubt of that," Jolly Robin chimed in.
"What can it be?" little Mr. Chippy piped in his thin voice.
"I know!" Rusty Wren exclaimed abruptly. "It's his bearings! Grandfather Mole has lost his bearings!"