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 gravelled 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.