“‘Mr. Mole,’ replied Mr. Badger.  ’I saw him at work here this morning.

Have you noticed how very plump he looks?’

“‘Yes,’ replied Mr. Fox.  ’He made my mouth water the very last time I saw him.  Seems to me I can smell him now.  If he had made this hole just a little bit bigger I would go down and pull him out, but I am too tired to do any digging now.’

“‘I tell you what,’ replied Mr. Badger.  ’We’ll hunt together a little longer, and then if we can’t find anything to eat, we’ll come back, and I’ll help you dig, I hate to hurt Mr. Mole, because he always minds his own business, but these are hard times, and each one must look out for himself.’

“With that they went away, leaving Mr. Mole shaking with fright at the bottom of his hole.  ‘It’s of no use,’ thought Mr. Mole.  ’If I go outside, they will soon find me, and if I stay here, they will dig me out.  Oh, dear, oh, dear!  What ever can I do?’

“He lay there feeling very helpless and miserable, when all of a sudden a thought came to him.  If he had made his hole small, just big enough for him to crawl into, Mr. Badger and Mr. Fox would have had to do a great deal of digging to make it big enough for either of them to get in!  He would make a little tunnel off one side and hide in that.  So he went to work and made a little tunnel off one side just big enough for him to squeeze into.  He worked very hard and very fast, and by the time Mr. Badger and Mr. Fox returned, Mr. Mole was at the end of a long tunnel, so far from the hole he had first dug that he knew it would take them a long time to dig him out, even if they noticed his tunnel.

“But they didn’t.  They dug down to the bottom of his hole and then, because they didn’t find him there, they straightway fell to quarreling, each blaming the other for suggesting such a lot of hard work for nothing.  Finally they went away, still calling each other names, and from that day to this, Foxes and Badgers have never been friends.

“Mr. Mole was very thankful for his narrow escape, and it set him to thinking.  If he had a lot of these underground tunnels, no one would be able to catch him.  It was a splendid idea!  He went to work on it at once.  And then he made a discovery—­such a splendid discovery!  There was plenty of food to eat right down under ground—­worms and grubs—­all he needed.  After that, Mr. Mole spent all his time in his tunnels and seldom put his nose outside.  He was safe, and he was comfortable, and he could always find something to eat by digging for it.

“Little by little his old neighbors forgot all about him.  Because he had little use for them, his eyes grew smaller and smaller, and when he did come up into the light, they hurt him so that he was glad to go back into the dark again.  He was perfectly happy and satisfied there, and what is there in life better than to be happy and satisfied?”

“Nothing,” replied Striped Chipmunk, at whom Grandfather Frog happened to be looking when he asked the question.