Five Classic Animal Adventures by Rudyard Kipling

Author:Rudyard Kipling
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504049641
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween
Published: 2017-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

II. THE OPEN ROAD

‘Ratty,’ said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, ‘if you please, I want to ask you a favour.’

The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay proper attention to Mole or anything else. Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water. At last they implored him to go away and attend to his own affairs and leave them to mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the river bank in the sun, and made up a song about them, which he called

‘DUCKS’ DITTY.’

All along the backwater,

Through the rushes tall,

Ducks are a-dabbling,

Up tails all!

Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,

Yellow feet a-quiver,

Yellow bills all out of sight

Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth

Where the roach swim—

Here we keep our larder,

Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!

We like to be

Heads down, tails up,

Dabbling free!

High in the blue above

Swifts whirl and call—

We are down a-dabbling

Uptails all!

‘I don’t know that I think so very much of that little song, Rat,’ observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn’t care who knew it; and he had a candid nature.

‘Nor don’t the ducks neither,’ replied the Rat cheerfully. ‘They say, “Why can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like when they like and AS they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them? What nonsense it all is!” That’s what the ducks say.’

‘So it is, so it is,’ said the Mole, with great heartiness.

‘No, it isn’t!’ cried the Rat indignantly.

‘Well then, it isn’t, it isn’t,’ replied the Mole soothingly. ‘But what I wanted to ask you was, won’t you take me to call on Mr. Toad? I’ve heard so much about him, and I do so want to make his acquaintance.’

‘Why, certainly,’ said the good-natured Rat, jumping to his feet and dismissing poetry from his mind for the day. ‘Get the boat out, and we’ll paddle up there at once. It’s never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!’

‘He must be a very nice animal,’ observed the Mole, as he got into the boat and took the sculls, while the Rat settled himself comfortably in the stern.

‘He is indeed the best of animals,’ replied Rat. ‘So simple, so good-natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps

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