The Wind in the Willows for Bedtime Read Aloud

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Front end Comprehend]

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

_The Piper at the Gates of Dawn_]

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

By KENNETH GRAHAME

ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL BRANSOM

Front end Fly Leafage showing the main characters enjoying a picnic]

  NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'Due south SONS MCMXIII

_Copyright, 1908, 1913, by_ CHARLES SCRIBNER'Southward SONS _Published October, 1913_

CONTENTS

Chapter Folio

I. THE RIVER Depository financial institution i

II. THE Open ROAD 27

Iii. THE WILD WOOD 53

Four. MR. BADGER 79

V. DULCE DOMUM 107

Vi. MR. TOAD 139

Seven. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN 167

VIII. TOAD'S ADVENTURES 191

IX. WAYFARERS ALL 219

X. THE Farther ADVENTURES OF TOAD 253

XI. "LIKE Summertime TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS" 287

XII. THE Return OF ULYSSES 323

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn _Frontispiece_

Facing Page

It was the Water Rat 8

"Come on!" he said. "Nosotros shall merely have to walk information technology" 50

In panic, he began to run 64

Through the Wild Wood and the snow 94

Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon 164

He lay prostrate in his misery on the floor 196

"It's a difficult life, by all accounts," murmured the Rat 240

Dwelling chiefly on his own cleverness, and presence of heed in emergencies 292

The Badger said, "Now and so, follow me!" 326

I

THE RIVER BANK

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, bound-cleaninghis petty habitation. First with brooms, so with dusters; and then on laddersand steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till hehad dust in his pharynx and optics, and splashes of whitewash all overhis black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Leap was moving inthe air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating evenhis dark and lowly lilliputian business firm with its spirit of divine discontentand longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung downhis brush on the flooring, said, "Bother!" and "O accident!" and besides "Hangspring-cleaning!" and bolted out of the house without even waiting toput on his glaze. Something up above was calling him imperiously, andhe fabricated for the steep trivial tunnel which answered in his example to thegravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearerto the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled andscrooged, and and so he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched andscraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself,"Up we get! Up we go!" till at last, pop! his snout came out into thesunlight and he plant himself rolling in the warm grass of a greatmeadow.

"This is fine!" he said to himself. "This is better than whitewashing!"The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heatedbrow, and afterward the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in and so longthe ballad of happy birds roughshod on his dulled hearing virtually like a shout.Jumping off all his iv legs at once, in the joy of living and thedelight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across themeadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.

"Concord up!" said an elderly rabbit at the gap. "Sixpence for theprivilege of passing by the private road!" He was bowled over in aninstant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along theside of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits every bit they peeped hurriedlyfrom their holes to run into what the row was near. "Onion-sauce!Onion-sauce!" he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they couldthink of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all startedgrumbling at each other. "How _stupid_ you are! Why didn't you tellhim--" "Well, why didn't _you_ say--" "Yous might take reminded him--"and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much toolate, as is always the case.

It all seemed too skilful to be true. Hither and thither through the meadowshe rambled busily, along the hedgerows, beyond the copses, findingeverywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting--everythinghappy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasyconscience pricking him and whispering "whitewash!" he somehow could onlyfeel how jolly it was to exist the only idle domestic dog among all these busycitizens. After all, the all-time part of a holiday is perhaps not so muchto be resting yourself, equally to run into all the other fellows decorated working.

He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlesslyalong, suddenly he stood past the border of a total-fed river. Never in hislife had he seen a river earlier--this sleek, sinuous, full-bodiedanimal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle andleaving them with a express mirth, to fling itself on fresh playmates thatshook themselves costless, and were caught and held once again. All was a-shakeand a-shiver--glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl,chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. Bythe side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by theside of a man who holds ane spellbound by heady stories; and whentired at terminal, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered onto him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the globe, sentfrom the heart of the world to be told at last to the insatiable bounding main.

As he sat on the grass and looked beyond the river, a dark hole in thebank opposite, just above the h2o's edge, caught his centre, anddreamily he fell to considering what a nice, snug abode-place itwould brand for an beast with few wants and fond of a bijou riversideresidence, in a higher place inundation level and remote from noise and dust. As hegazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heartof information technology, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But itcould hardly exist a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was tooglittering and minor for a glow-worm. And so, every bit he looked, it winked athim, and and so alleged itself to be an heart; and a small-scale face begangradually to grow up round information technology, similar a frame round a picture.

A brown little face, with whiskers.

A grave circular confront, with the same twinkle in its centre that had firstattracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky pilus.

Information technology was the H2o Rat!

And then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

"Hullo, Mole!" said the Water Rat.

"Hullo, Rat!" said the Mole.

"Would you like to come over?" enquired the Rat presently.

"Oh, it's all very well to _talk_," said the Mole rather pettishly, hebeing new to a river and riverside life and its ways.

The Rat said nada, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled onit; so lightly stepped into a piddling boat which the Mole had notobserved. Information technology was painted blueish outside and white inside, and was justthe size for ii animals; and the

Mole's whole heart went out to it atonce, even though he did non withal fully understand its uses.

The Rat sculled smartly beyond and made fast. Then he held upwardly hisfore-paw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. "Lean on that!" he said."Now then, step lively!" and the Mole to his surprise and rapturefound himself actually seated in the stern of a real gunkhole.

"This has been a wonderful twenty-four hours!" said he, equally the Rat shoved off andtook to the sculls over again. "Do you know, I've never been in a boatbefore in all my life."

_It was the Water Rat_]

"What?" cried the Rat, open-mouthed: "Never been in a--you never--wellI--what have you lot been doing, then?"

"Is it so nice as all that?" asked the Mole shyly, though he was quiteprepared to believe information technology as he leant back in his seat and surveyed thecushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings,and felt the boat sway lightly nether him.

"Prissy? It's the _only_ thing," said the H2o Rat solemnly as he leantforward for his stroke. "Believe me, my young friend, in that location is_nothing_--accented zilch--half and so much worth doing equally simplymessing almost in boats. Simply messing," he went on dreamily:"messing--about--in--boats; messing--"

"Await ahead, Rat!" cried the Mole suddenly.

Information technology was too belatedly. The gunkhole struck the banking concern full tilt. The dreamer, thejoyous oarsman, lay on his back at the lesser of the boat, his heelsin the air.

"--about in boats--or _with_ boats," the Rat went on composedly,picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. "In or out of 'em, itdoesn't matter. Nothing seems actually to matter, that's the amuse ofit. Whether yous get away, or whether y'all don't; whether you arrive atyour destination or whether you lot accomplish somewhere else, or whether younever become anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never doanything in particular; and when you've done information technology there's alwayssomething else to do, and you can do information technology if you similar, but you lot'd muchbetter not. Look here! If you've actually cipher else on mitt thismorning, supposing we driblet down the river together, and have a longday of it?"

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest witha sigh of total delectation, and leant back blissfully into the softcushions. "_What_ a mean solar day I'm having!" he said. "Let us outset at once!"

"Agree hard a minute, then!" said the Rat. He looped the painterthrough a ring in his landing-stage, climbed upwards into his hole in a higher place,and after a brusk interval reappeared staggering under a fat wickerluncheon-basket.

"Shove that under your feet," he observed to the Mole, as he passed itdown into the boat. And so he untied the painter and took the scullsagain.

"What's inside it?" asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

"In that location's cold chicken inside it," replied the Rat briefly:"coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater--"

"O cease, terminate!" cried the Mole in ecstasies. "This is too much!"

"Do you really think so?" enquired the Rat seriously. "It'southward only whatI always take on these piddling excursions; and the other animals arealways telling me that I'm a mean animal and cut it _very_ fine!"

The Mole never heard a discussion he was saying. Absorbed in the new life hewas inbound upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, thescents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a hand in the waterand dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat, similar the skillful littlefellow he was, sculled steadily on and forbore to disturb him.

"I like your wearing apparel awfully, old chap," he remarked after some halfan hr or and so had passed. "I'm going to become a black velvet smoking-suitmyself some day, as before long every bit I tin afford it."

"I beg your pardon," said the Mole, pulling himself together with aneffort. "You must think me very rude; only all this is so new to me.So--this--is--a--River!"

"_The_ River," corrected the Rat.

"And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!"

"By it and with it and on it and in it," said the Rat. "It's brotherand sister to me, and aunts, and visitor, and food and drinkable, and(naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want whatever other. Whatit hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is notworth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together! Whether in winteror summer, jump or autumn, it's ever got its fun and itsexcitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars andbasement are brimming with drink that'south no good to me, and the brownwater runs past my all-time bedroom window; or again when it all drops awayand shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushesand weed clog the channels, and I tin can potter nigh dry shod over mostof the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things carelesspeople take dropped out of boats!"

"Only isn't information technology a bit tiresome at times?" the Mole ventured to ask. "Justyou and the river, and no i else to pass a give-and-take with?"

"No one else to--well, I mustn't be difficult on you," said the Rat withforbearance. "Y'all're new to it, and of form y'all don't know. The bankis so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether. Ono, it isn't what it used to be, at all. Otters, king-fishers,dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always wantingyou to _do_ something--as if a swain had no business concern of his own toattend to!"

"What lies over _there_?" asked the Mole, waving a paw towards abackground of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on oneside of the river.

"That? O, that's just the Wild Forest," said the Rat shortly. "We don'tgo there very much, we river-bankers."

"Aren't they--aren't they very _nice_ people in in that location?" said the Molea trifle nervously.

"W-eastward-ll," replied the Rat, "allow me see. The squirrels are all right._And_ the rabbits--some of 'em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And thenthere'due south Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn'tlive anywhere else, either, if yous paid him to do it. Dear old Badger!Nobody interferes with _him_. They'd better not," he addedsignificantly.

"Why, who _should_ interfere with him?" asked the Mole.

"Well, of grade--there--are others," explained the Rat in a hesitatingsort of fashion. "Weasels--and stoats--and foxes--and and then on. They're all rightin a way--I'thou very good friends with them--laissez passer the time of day when wemeet, and all that--but they break out sometimes, there'southward no denying information technology,and then--well, you can't actually trust them, and that's the fact."

The Mole knew well that it is quite against creature-etiquette to dwellon possible problem alee, or even to insinuate to information technology; so he dropped thesubject.

"And beyond the Wild Wood again?" he asked; "where it's all blue anddim, and one sees what may be hills or maybe they mayn't, andsomething like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?"

"Beyond the Wild Woods comes the Wide Globe," said the Rat. "And that'ssomething that doesn't matter, either to yous or me. I've never beenthere, and I'm never going, nor you either, if you've got any sense atall. Don't always refer to it once again, please. Now then! Here's ourbackwater at final, where we're going to luncheon."

Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at firstsight like a fiddling landlocked lake. Green turf sloped down to eitheredge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quietwater, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of aweir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping factory-wheel, that held up inits turn a greyness-gabled manufactory-house, filled the air with a soothingmurmur of audio, dull and smothery, all the same with little clear voicesspeaking upwards cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was and then verybeautiful that the Mole could simply agree up both fore-paws and gasp: "Omy! O my! O my!"

The Rat brought the boat aslope the banking concern, made her fast, helped thestill awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket.The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself;and the Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at fulllength on the grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out thetable-textile and spread information technology, took out all the mysterious packets one byone and arranged their contents in due society, still gasping: "O my! Omy!" at each fresh revelation. When all was ready, the Rat said, "Now,pitch in, onetime fellow!" and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey, forhe had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that morning,every bit people _will_

do, and had not paused for seize with teeth or sup; and he hadbeen through a very great deal since that distant time which nowseemed so many days ago.

"What are yous looking at?" said the Rat presently, when the edge oftheir hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole's eyes were able towander off the tabular array-cloth a little.

"I am looking," said the Mole, "at a streak of bubbles that I seetravelling forth the surface of the water. That is a matter thatstrikes me as funny."

"Bubbles? Oho!" said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an invitingsort of way.

A wide glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank,and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his glaze.

"Greedy beggars!" he observed, making for the provender. "Why didn'tyou invite me, Ratty?"

"This was an impromptu matter," explained the Rat. "By the fashion--myfriend Mr. Mole."

"Proud, I'm sure," said the Otter, and the two animals were friendsforthwith.

"Such a rumpus everywhere!" connected the Otter. "All the world seemsout on the river to-day. I came upwardly this backwater to try and go amoment's peace, and then stumble upon y'all fellows!--At least--I begpardon--I don't exactly mean that, yous know."

There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein lastyear's leaves nonetheless clung thick, and a stripy head, with highshoulders backside information technology, peered forth on them.

"Come up on, old Badger!" shouted the Rat.

The Badger trotted forwards a stride or two, so grunted, "H'm!Company," and turned his back and disappeared from view.

"That'southward _just_ the sort of beau he is!" observed the disappointedRat. "Simply hates Gild! Now we shan't run into any more of him to-day.Well, tell us, _who's_ out on the river?"

"Toad's out, for one," replied the Otter. "In his brand-new wager-boat;new togs, new everything!"

The two animals looked at each other and laughed.

"Once, it was nothing but sailing," said the Rat. "Then he tired ofthat and took to punting. Zero would please him simply to punt all dayand every day, and a overnice mess he fabricated of it. Last year it washouse-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him in hishouse-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to spend the remainder ofhis life in a house-gunkhole. It's all the same, whatever he takes up; hegets tired of it, and starts on something fresh."

"Such a good fellow, too," remarked the Otter reflectively; "but nostability--especially in a gunkhole!"

From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream acrossthe island that separated them; and merely and so a wager-boat flashedinto view, the rower--a short, stout figure--splashing badly androlling a good bargain, merely working his hardest. The Rat stood upward andhailed him, simply Toad--for it was he--shook his head and settledsternly to his work.

"He'll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that," said theRat, sitting downward again.

"Of grade he will," chuckled the Otter. "Did I ever tell you thatgood story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this fashion.Toad...."

An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in theintoxicated fashion affected past young bloods of May-flies seeinglife. A swirl of h2o and a "cloop!" and the May-fly was visible nomore.

Neither was the Otter.

The Mole looked down. The voice was however in his ears, but the turfwhereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Non an Otter to be seen,as far as the distant horizon.

But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.

The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquetteforbade any sort of annotate on the sudden disappearance of 1'sfriends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.

"Well, well," said the Rat, "I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonderwhich of united states had better pack the luncheon-basket?" He did not speak asif he was frightfully eager for the treat.

"O, delight let me," said the Mole. So, of grade, the Rat let him.

Packing the basket was non quite such pleasant piece of work every bit unpacking thebasket. Information technology never is. But the Mole was aptitude on enjoying everything,and although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped uptightly he saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when thejob had been done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody oughtto accept seen, and concluding of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he hadbeen sitting on without knowing it--notwithstanding, somehow, the thing gotfinished at last, without much loss of temper.

The afternoon lord's day was getting low every bit the Rat sculled gently homewardsin a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and notpaying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch,and self-satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at abode in a boat(so he thought), and was getting a bit restless besides: and presentlyhe said, "Ratty! Please, _I_ want to row, now!"

The Rat shook his caput with a grin. "Not yet, my young friend," hesaid; "await till you've had a few lessons. Information technology's not so easy every bit itlooks."

The Mole was tranquillity for a minute or two. But he began to experience more andmore jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so hands along, and hispride began to whisper that he could do information technology equally likewise. Hejumped upward and seized the sculls so suddenly that the Rat, who wasgazing out over the water and saying more verse-things to himself,was taken by surprise and fell backwards off his seat with his legs inthe air for the second time, while the triumphant Mole took his placeand grabbed the sculls with entire conviction.

"Stop it, you _silly_ donkey!" cried the Rat, from the bottom of theboat. "You tin can't do it! You'll take usa over!"

The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great digat the h2o. He missed the surface birthday, his legs flew up abovehis head, and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat.Profoundly alarmed, he made a take hold of at the side of the boat, and the nextmoment--Sploosh!

Over went the boat, and he constitute himself struggling in the river.

O my, how cold the water was, and O, how _very_ wet information technology felt! How itsang in his ears as he went downward, down, downwardly! How bright and welcomethe sun looked as he rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! Howblack was his despair when he felt himself sinking again! Then a firmpaw gripped him by the back of his neck. It was the Rat, and he wasevidently laughing--the Mole could _feel_ him laughing, right down hisarm and through his hand, and so into his--the Mole's--cervix.

The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole's arm; thenhe did the aforementioned past the other side of him and, pond behind,propelled the helpless creature to shore, hauled him out, and gear up himdown on the bank, a squashy, pulpy lump of misery.

When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the moisture outof him, he said, "At present then, former fellow! Trot up and down thetowing-path as hard as you can, till you're warm and dry again, whileI dive for the luncheon-basket."

And then the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed inside, trotted about tillhe was adequately dry out, while the Rat plunged into the water once again,recovered the boat, righted her and made her fast, fetched hisfloating property to shore by degrees, and finally dived successfullyfor the luncheon-basket and struggled to land with it.

When all was gear up for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected,took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they gear up off, he saidin a depression phonation, broken with emotion, "Ratty, my generous friend! I amvery sad indeed for my foolish and ungrateful bear. My heartquite fails me when I recall how I might have lost that beautifulluncheon-basket. Indeed, I have been a consummate ass, and I know it.Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and allow things go on asbefore?"

"That'south all right, bless you!" responded the Rat cheerily. "What's alittle wet to a Water Rat? I'm more in the water than out of it mostdays. Don't you recollect whatsoever more about it; and wait here! I really thinkyou had better come and terminate with me for a trivial fourth dimension. Information technology's veryplain and rough, you know--not like Toad's house at all--only youhaven't seen that yet; nonetheless, I can make you comfortable. And I'llteach yous to row and to swim, and you'll soon be as handy on the wateras whatsoever of u.s.a.."

The Mole was and so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he couldfind no voice to respond him;

and he had to castor away a tear or twowith the back of his hand. Just the Rat kindly looked in anotherdirection, and before long the Mole's spirits revived once more, and he waseven able to give some straight back-talk to a couple of moorhens whowere sniggering to each other virtually his decrepit appearance.

When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, andplanted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down adressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories tillsupper-time. Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an earth-dwellinganimal like Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden floods, and leapingpike, and steamers that flung hard bottles--at to the lowest degree bottles werecertainly flung, and _from_ steamers, then presumably _by_ them; andabout herons, and how item they were whom they spoke to; and aboutadventures downwards drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions fara-field with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very shortlyafterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted upstairs by hisconsiderate host, to the all-time chamber, where he soon laid his head onhis pillow in great peace and delectation, knowing that his new-foundfriend, the River, was lapping the sill of his window.

This day was merely the first of many like ones for the emancipatedMole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summermoved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joyof running h2o; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, atintervals, something of what the wind went whispering and then constantlyamong them.

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