The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said 'Bother!' and 'O blow!' and also 'Hang spring-cleaning!' and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gavelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, 'Up we go! Up we go!' till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow. 'This is fine!' he said to himself. 'This is better than whitewashing!' The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side. 'Hold up!' said an elderly rabbit at the gap. 'Sixpence for the privilege of passing by the private road!' He was bowled over in an instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly from their holes to see what the row was about. 'Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!' he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. 'How STUPID you are! Why didn't you tell him——' 'Well, why didn't YOU say——' 'You might have reminded him——' and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much too late, as is always the case. It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering 'whitewash!' he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
Det suser i sivet, eller Hr. Padda fra Paddeborg og vennene hans
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookClassic Children's Books Collection
Frances Hodgson Burnett, Kenneth Grahame, Selma Lagerlöf, Margery Williams
bookThe Greatest Christmas Novels Collection (Illustrated Edition) : Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, The Romance of a Christmas Card, The Little City of Hope
Johanna Spyri, Charles Dickens, George MacDonald, Louisa May Alcott, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Anna Sewell, Hesba Stretton, Kenneth Grahame, Martha Finley, Abbie Farwell Brown, Frances Browne, L. Frank Baum, J.M. Barrie, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Mary Louisa Molesworth
bookChildren's Favorites - Volume III
L. Frank Baum, Kenneth Grahame, Edith Nesbit
audiobookThe Reluctant Dragon - Unabridged
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookThe Lost Manuscript The Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookThe Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookbookThe Wind In The Willows
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookA Merry Furry Christmas: Heartwarming Animal Tales Collection : The Cricket on the Hearth, The Tailor of Gloucester, Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, The Wind in the Willows, The Wonderful Wizard of OZ, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Cat & Dog Stories, Black Beauty
Beatrix Potter, L. Frank Baum, Kenneth Grahame, Anna Sewell, Margery Williams, E. T. Hoffmann, Hugh Lofting, Amy Ella Blanchard, Samuel McChord Crothers, John Punnett Peters, Eugene Field, Charles Dickens, Frances Browne, Mary E. Freeman, Elizabeth Stuart Ward, Archibald Beresford Sullivan, Walter Crane
bookThe Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookbookThe Wind in the Willows
Kenneth Grahame
audiobookbookEvergreen Christmas Readings
A.A. Milne, Santa Claus, Adelaide Anne Procter, Algernon Blackwood, Alice Duer Miller, Alice Hale Burnett, Amy Ella Blanchard, Andy Adams, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton, Annie Eliot Trumbull, Annie Roe Carr, Anonymous, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Banjo Paterson, Beatrix Potter, Berthold Auerbach, Bret Harte, Brothers Grimm, Grimm Brothers, C.H. Mead, Cecil Frances Alexander, Charles Dickens, Charles Edward Carryl, Christopher North, Clement Clarke Moore, Cornelia Redmond, Don Marquis, Dylan Thomas, Edward Payson Roe, Eleanor Hallowell Abbott, Elia W. Peattie, Elizabeth Anderson, Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Ellis Parker Butler, Ernest Vincent Wright, Eugene Field, Evaleen Stein, Florence L. Barclay, Francis Pharcellus Church, Frank Stockton, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, G.K. Chesterton, George A. Baker, George Augustus Sala, George Robert Sims, H.W. Collingwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Hans Christian Andersen, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henry van Dyke, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hesba Stretton, Hezekiah Butterworth, Jacob August Riis, James Whitcomb Riley, John Bowring, John Greenleaf Whittier, John Kendrick Bangs, John Masefield, John Milton, John Strange Winter, José María De Pereda, Julia Schayer, Juliana Horatia Ewing, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Katharine Lee Bates, Kenneth Grahame, L. Frank Baum, Lyman Frank Baum, Laura Lee Hope, Leo Tolstoy, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Lewis Carroll, Lope de Vega, Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, L.M. Montgomery, M.E.S, Margaret E. Sangster, Margery Williams, Mark Twain, Martha Finley, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Louisa Molesworth, Meredith Nicholson, Montague Rhodes James, Mother Goose, W. H. Corning, Nahum Tate, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Newton Booth Tarkington, O.Henry, Olive Thorne Miller, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Peter Christen Asbjornsen, Ralph Henry Barbour, Richmal Crompton, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Robert Ervin Howard, Robert Frost, Robert Ingersoll, Robert Louis Stevenson, R.L. Stevenson, Rose Terry Cooke, Rudyard Kipling, S. Weir Mitchell, Saki, Sara Teasdale, Stephen Leacock, Theodore Parker, Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hill, Thomas Nelson Page, Viktor Rydberg, Washington Irving, Willa Cather, William Dean Howells, William Henry Davies, William J. Locke, William Makepeace Thackeray, William Shakespeare, Zona Gale
book