Star Nose, the mole, loved best of all very dark places. In fact he spent most of his life underground, so that whenever he did venture abroad into strong sunlight, the glare would nearly blind his tiny, almost concealed eyes. It was on this very account, more than any other, that he preferred to come forth from his underground home about twilight. Now if you chanced to come across Star Nose above ground, at first sight you might judge him to be a very slow-moving, dull-witted creature. In reality he was just about the most fierce, blood-thirsty little fellow on earth or under it. For, if Star Nose had actually been about the size of a lion, instead of a tiny mole, he might readily, with one grasp of teeth or claws, so it is said, tear a great ox asunder. So it was just as well for everybody that he was a mere mole.  
Wonderfully fine and soft, beyond words, was his smoke-grey, plush-like coat, and by special providence the fur of this coat did not grow in just one direction like that of most furred animals. Instead, you might stroke it either way, up or down. For this reason Star Nose was able to travel backward or forward with equal speed. So strong was Star Nose that he could upheave a long section of the hardest earth, no matter if a steam roller had gone over it. Sometimes, when travelling swiftly through one of his subway passages, his velvety coat would become caked with soil; then he would give himself a quick shake which sent it flying from his back, thus cleaning his fur.
 
It is never well to judge anything by mere appearances, so, although Star Nose had tiny bits of eyes and no visible ears, he was by no means a dullard. Nature, ever helpful, had shown him exactly the way to take care of himself, and, unlike his cousins, the plain little shrews, Star Nose wore upon the tip end of his small pointed snout a pink star. This star was not given him for just an ornament; it helped him wonderfully in finding his way about underground and, besides, he used it in rooting out deep holes, precisely as a pig uses its flattened snout. Star Nose spent most of his life digging, and for this very reason his claws, instead of curving inward when shut, as do those of most other animals, were arranged in quite a queer fashion—they curved back. This was a great help to him, for he could use them precisely as though they were little spades to toss aside the dirt out of his road. So quickly did he work that, if you but turned your head away for a minute, by the time you looked again Star Nose had dug a hole and was out of sight.
 
Of all the burrowing tribes which live below ground Star Nose was perhaps the prize digger. He was not content to dig out a burrow for himself a little distance below ground and then sit still in its doorway as did his neighbours, the gopher family. No, nothing would suit Star Nose but a regular city subway, with such straight streets that you wondered how, with his half blindness, he could ever manage to dig them. In addition to this, there were spacious chambers, passages, and regular galleries—long roads which led to his feeding places. You would soon have lost your way in such a maze, but Star Nose never did. He lived in a great bank, and the entrance to his home he had concealed beneath a bush where you would never have seen it, so deftly was it hidden. There was just a little spot raised in the earth which led straight into a large chamber. Five passageways descended from this, connected by galleries lower down, and from this ran many subways and long roads which were worn quite hard and smooth by the passage of old Star Nose, the hermit mole. It was very well for him that these walls were solid, otherwise his whole home might have come tumbling in upon him during a storm.
 
Now the real reason why Star Nose happened to be occupying such a grand apartment alone was this. Last June he had chanced to meet and select for his mate a little silver-coated mole. But one of his plain, shrew mole cousins had upset all his well laid plans. Happening to meet Star Nose and his companion just outside their burrow, he actually tried to persuade her to go off with him. This was entirely too much for Star Nose to stand; it made him so furiously angry and jealous that he fell upon the impudent shrew, and right there under the home bush they had a dreadful battle. Long and hard they fought there; they scratched and tore and bit each other's beautiful fur coats until they were in tatters, uttering fierce squeaks of rage, rolling over and over in a deadly grip, each mole quite determined to win little Silver Coat, while she, poor thing, sat stupidly by, wondering what it all meant. As she sat there shaking gently, old Golden Eyes, the hawk, went sailing overhead, and making one swift lunge downward bore her away. Neither Star Nose nor his antagonist noticed that she was missing; they kept on with their awful fight, biting each other savagely, as they had in the beginning, until finally the shrew had to give up; he was getting the worst of it, and crawled miserably away. Then Star Nose, for the first time remembering what the fight had been about, searched vainly for his little companion. He peered anxiously everywhere, nosing the earth on all sides and searching; then, thinking perhaps she had gone down into the burrow, down he scurried, peering up and down the long roads and galleries, calling softly to her with little muffled squeaks; this because of the earth which sometimes filled his nostrils. In vain he searched. He did not find Silver Coat. Discouraged and worn out on account of his terrific struggles, he gave up, huddled himself in a soft little ball, covered his head with his flat claws, and took a long sleep in the main chamber of his home, hoping to forget his troubles.
 
All that summer Star Nose lived alone, and so he became a kind of hermit mole. Of course he was not so very happy; in fact his disposit............