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HOME > Children's Novel > The Burgess Animal Book for Children > CHAPTER XX Four Busy Little Miners
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CHAPTER XX Four Busy Little Miners
 Scampering along on his way to school and thinking of nothing so uninteresting as watching his steps, Peter Rabbit stubbed his toes. Yes, sir, Peter stubbed his toes. With a little of he turned to see what he had stumbled over. It was a little where the surface of the ground had been raised a trifle since Peter had passed that way the day before.  
Peter . “Now isn't that funny?” he demanded of no one at all, for he was quite alone. Then he answered himself. “It certainly is,” said he. “Here I am on my way to learn something about Miner the , and I trip over one of the queer little he is forever making. It wasn't here yesterday, so that means that he is at work right around here now. Hello, I thought so!”
 
Peter had been looking along that little ridge and had discovered that it ended only a short distance from him. Now as he looked at it again, he saw the flat surface of the ground at the end of the ridge rise as if being pushed up from beneath, and that little ridge became just so much longer. Peter understood . Out of sight beneath the surface Miner the Mole was at work. He was digging a tunnel, and that ridge was simply the roof to that tunnel. It was so near the surface of the ground that Miner simply pushed up the loose soil as he bored his way along, and this made the little ridge over which Peter had stumbled.
 
Peter watched a few minutes, then turned and , lipperty-lipperty-lip, for the Green Forest. He arrived at school quite out of breath, the last one. Old Mother Nature was about to him for being late, but noticing his excitement, she changed her mind.
 
“Well, Peter,” said she. “What is it now? Did you have a narrow escape on your way here?”
 
Peter shook his head. “No,” he replied. “No, I didn't have a narrow escape, but I discovered something.”
 
Happy Squirrel snickered. “Peter is always discovering something,” said he. “He is a great little discoverer. Probably he has just found out that the only way to get anywhere on time is to start soon enough.”
 
“No such thing!” declared Peter indignantly. “You—”
 
“Never mind him, Peter,” interrupted Old Mother Nature . “What was it you discovered?”
 
“That the very one we are to learn about is only a little way from here this very minute. Miner the Mole is at work on the Green Meadow; close to the edge of the Green Forest,” cried Peter eagerly. “I thought perhaps you would want to-”
 
“Have this morning's lesson right there where we can at least see his works if not himself,” interrupted Old Mother Nature again. “That is fine, Peter. We will go over there at once. It is always better to see things than to merely hear about them.”
 
So Peter led the way to where he had stumbled over that little ridge on his way to school. It was longer than when he had left it, but even as the others crowded about to look, the earth was pushed up and it grew in length. Old Mother Nature stooped and made a little hole in that ridge. Then she put her lips close to it and commanded Miner to come out. She softly, pleasantly, but in a way that left no doubt that she expected to be obeyed.
 
She was. Almost at once a queer, long, sharp nose was out of the little hole she had made, and a squeaky voice asked fretfully, “Do I have to come way out?”
 
“You certainly do,” replied Old Mother Nature. “I want some of your friends and neighbors to get a good look at you, and they certainly can't do that with only that sharp nose of yours to be seen. Now out here. No one will hurt you. I will keep you only a few minutes. Then you can go back to your digging. Out with you, now!”
 
While the others gathered in a little circle close about that hole there into view one of the queerest little fellows in all the Great World. Few of them had ever seen him close to before. He was a little fellow with the softest, thickest, gray coat imaginable. He was about six inches long and had a funny, short, pinkish-white, naked tail that at once reminded Peter of an Angleworm.
 
His head seemed to be set directly on his shoulders, so that there was no neck worth mentioning. His nose was long and sharp and extended far beyond his mouth. Neither ears nor eyes were to be seen.
 
Striped at once wanted to know how Miner could see. “He doesn't see as you do,” replied Old Mother Nature. “He has very small eyes, tiny things, which you might find if you should part the fur around them, but they are of use only to distinguish light from darkness. Miner hasn't the least idea what any of you look like. You see, he spends his life under ground and of course has no use for eyes there. They would be a nuisance, for the dirt would be continually getting in them if they were any larger than they are or were not protected as they are. If you should feel of Miner's nose you would find it hard. That is because he uses it to bore with in the earth. Just notice those hands of his.”
 
At once everybody looked at Miner's hands. No one ever had seen such hands before. The arms were short but looked very strong. The hands also were rather short, but what they lacked in length they made up in width and they were armed with long, stout claws. But the queer thing about them was the way he held them. He held them turned out. His feet were not much different from the hind feet of the Mouse family.
 
Miner was plainly uncomfortable. He about uneasily and it was very clear that he was there only because Old Mother Nature had commanded him to be there, and that the one thing he wanted most was to get back into his beloved ground. Old Mother Nature saw this and took pity on him. S............
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