杨柳风 04（在线收听）

Chapter Four Meeting Badger

The door opened just a few inches and Mole and Rat heard a voice say, “Now, the next time this happens I shall be very angry. Who is it this time? Why are you disturbing me on the night like this?”

“Oh, Badger!” cried Rat. “Please, let us in. It’s me, Rat and my friend Mole. We’ve lost our way in the snow.”

“What? Rat? My dear friend?” The Badger said in a very different voice. “Come on in, both of you at once! Why, you must be almost frozen with cold. Oh, dear, lost in the Wild Forest and at this time of night, too! Come inside and get warm!”

The door opened and they saw a large Badger wearing a bathrobe and holding a candle.

Mole and Rat almost fell down in their hurry to get inside the warm house. The Badger looked kindly at the two smaller animals. He patted their heads.

“This isn’t the kind of night for little animals like you to be out.” He said. “Come in to the kitchen. There is a fire there and many things to eat for dinner.”

This sounded like a very good idea to Mole and Rat.

Badger’s house was very large. It had many long passages. There were strong wooden doors in the passages. Mole wondered how many rooms were in Badger’s house.

Badger’s kitchen was large and warm. There was a long table with benches. A lot of delicious looking food was on top of the table. There was a large fire in the fireplace. It was the sort of place where friends could spend time together very comfortably.

First Badger gave Mole and Rat some warm dry clothes. Then he washed the cut on Mole’s leg with warm water. Then when the food was all ready, He told Mole and Rat to sit down at the table. How hungry they were!

It was a very long time before anyone began to talk. They were too busy eating. When they were finally finished, Mole and Rat told the story of what happened that day. Badger listened very carefully to them. He never said “I told you so” or “You should have done this” or things like that. Mole decided that Badger was one of the nicest animals he had ever met, except for Rat, of course.

After they had eaten, the three animals went and sat around the fire. It was a wonderful feeling to be warm and comfortable and not hungry.

After they had talked about general kinds of things, Badger said, “Now, then, tell me what’s going on in your part of the world. How is Toad these days?”

“Oh, it’s just terrible.” said Rat sadly. “You remember that he bought a car? Well, he is a terrible driver. He is always having accidents. In fact, he keeps on buying more cars because he is always ruining the one he’s got. If he would only let someone drive him around who knows how to drive, he would be all right. But, of course, he is so vain. He thinks he is the best driver in the world. The situation is ridiculous.”

“How many has he had?” asked the Badger seriously.

“How many accidents has he had or how many cars?” said the Rat. “Well, this is the seventh car if you can believe it.”

“He’s been in the hospital three times now. I can’t imagine how much money he’s had to pay.” said the Mole sadly.

“We all know that Toad is rich, but he is not a millionaire.” said Rat. “I’m afraid he is going to be killed driving one of those cars. He could lose all his money or go to jail. He’s always getting driving tickets. You know Toad doesn’t care about laws. Badger, we’re his friends. Do you think we ought to do something?”

The Badger thought about the problem for a few minutes.

“Now, listen here.” he said very firmly. “You know, of course, that I can’t do anything about Toad now.”

Mole and Rat understood. The laws of nature say that in winter animals do not work hard. The winter is a time for rest and sleep, while the spring, summer and autumn are the time for work and play. This was why Badger, Mole and Rat couldn’t help Toad immediately.

“Well, then, soon it will be almost spring time. I’ll be ready to be awake and doing things. Then the Rat, you and me and our friend Mole here will go to work. We’ll speak to Toad very seriously. We’ll stop him from driving any more cars. We’ll make him be a nice reasonable Toad. Well, Rat, you’re asleep!”

“No, I’m not.” said the Rat, waking up suddenly.

He had fallen asleep in his chair. The Mole laughed.

“He’s been asleep two or three times since dinner ended.” he said.

Mole himself felt very awake. This is because it was natural for Mole to live under the ground, just like Badger.

Before Mole had met Rat, he had been an underground animal and so he felt very comfortable in Badger’s house.

“Well, it’s time for all us to go to bed.” said the Badger.

He took Mole and Rat to a large room. The room was filled with the Badger’s supply of winter foods. There were apples, nuts, vegetables and jars of honey in large piles. But there were two comfortable beds in the corner with clean soft sheets.

“Don’t worry about getting up early. We’ll have breakfast anytime you like.” said the kind Badger.

The two tired animals got into bed and were asleep as soon as their heads touched the pillows.

In the morning Mole and Rat woke up very late. When they woke up, they went into the kitchen. There they found two young animals, called hedgehogs, sitting at the table and eating breakfast. When the hedgehogs saw Mole and Rat, they jumped up and bowed to them politely.

“Sit down! Sit down and finish your breakfast.” said the Rat cheerfully. “Now, where have you young children come from? Did you get lost in the snow?”

“Yes, sir.” said one of the hedgehogs. “My little brother Billy and I were going to school. But we got lost in the snow. Then Billy got frightened and cried. But then we found Mr. Badger’s house. He was very kind to us.”

“I understand.” said the Rat.

He began to cook some bacon, while the Mole fired some eggs.

“What is the weather like today?”

“Oh, it’s terrible, sir.” said one of the little hedgehogs. “The snow is very deep. I don’t think you’ll be able to leave today.”

“Where is Mr. Badger?” asked the Mole.

“Mr. Badger went into his room, sir. He told us he was very busy and he did not want to be disturbed for any reason.” replied the hedgehog.

Mole and Rat understood. An animal is very, very busy for one half of the year and very sleepy for the other half. So Badger was busy sleeping.

Suddenly the doorbell rang loudly. The Rat was eating some bread and butter. He sent Billy, the hedgehog, to see who it was.

After a moment, the Otter came running into the kitchen. He immediately threw his arms around Rat with a happy shout.

“Get off me!” cried the Rat. His mouth was full of bread.

“I thought I would find you two here.” said the Otter happily. “All the river animals were very worried about both of you. They were very upset this morning.”

‘Rat and Mole have been gone all night. Something terrible must have happened’ they said.

“Well, I knew that when animals have problems they go to Badger. So I went into the Wild Forest. I saw a rabbit sitting by a tree. The silly animal was so scared of me that I had to hit him several times before he would talk. The rabbit said he had seen Mole in the woods last night. All the rabbits were talking about it. Mole was in great danger because they were out hunting for him.”

‘Well, why didn’t you rabbits do something to help him?’ I said. ‘You might be stupid, but there are lots of you.’

‘Do something, us rabbits?’ was all he said.

“What a stupid animal! I left him sitting there and came here. And here you are.”

“But were you afraid to walk around in the Wild Forest?” asked Mole.

He remembered how terrible yesterday had been.

The Otter laughed. Mole saw his strong sharp white teeth.

“Oh, no.” he said. “I’ll make them afraid if I ran into any of them. No one bothers me in the Wild Forest. Now, Mole, be a good little Mole and fry me some ham. I’ve got a lot to talk to Rat about. I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

So the Mole fried some ham and they all sat down to eat it. Soon the Badger appeared in the kitchen. He greeted everyone very kindly.

“It’s almost lunchtime.” he said to the Otter. “You’d better stay here and eat with us. You must be hungry on this cold morning.”

“Oh, yes.” said the Otter.

The Badger sent someone to take the little hedgehogs back to their home. After a while, the other animals sat down to eat lunch.

Mole saw that he was sitting next to the Badger. The Otter and Rat were having a very long conversation about the river. So Mole and Badger began to talk. They discovered that they were very much alike because they lived underground. Mole told Badger how much he liked his house.

“Living underground is the best. That’s what I think.” said the Mole.

“You always know exactly where you are and nothing bad can happen to you. Things might change in the outside, but underground they’re always the same. No wind, snow or storms can harm you.”

The Badger smiled at him.

“That’s exactly what I always say. Here, after we finish eating, I’ll show you the rest of your house. I know you are the kind of animal who will appreciate it.”

After lunch, the Rat and Otter went to sit by the fire. Badger lit a candle and told Mole to follow him.

The Badger’s house was the most amazing house Mole had ever seen. It was much, much bigger than Toad’s house, but it was under the ground. There were many passages, tunnels and doors. The doors led to many large rooms.

“Badger,” Mole said finally. “How did you ever build this house? It’s astonishing! It must have taken you years and years.”

“It would have been amazing,” said the Badger, “if I had built it. But I didn’t build it. All I did was clean out the passages and the rooms. There are many more rooms and passages that we don’t see. I don’t even know how many rooms there are.”

Mole did not know what to say.

“Let me tell you some history.” said the Badger. “Many hundreds of years ago, before the Wild Forest existed, there was a great city of humans who lived under the ground. They built this place. Really, this is not a house. It is an underground city.”

“What happened to the humans?” asked the Mole.

“Who knows? Humans come, they stay for a while, and then they move somewhere else. That is their custom. But we animals remain. There were badgers living here long before the people and now there are badgers here again. We badgers are very patient animals, you see. We may leave for a while, but we always come back to our underground home.”

Badger’s words gave Mole a lot to think about. He remembered his own little home under the ground. He hadn’t seen it for a long time.

When Badger and Mole returned to the kitchen, they saw that Rat was very eager to go home to the river. The underground made him uncomfortable. He liked fresh air and sunshine.

“Relax, Rat.” said Badger. “I’ll show you a shortcut through the Wild Forest and you’ll be home in no time.

The Badger took Mole, Rat and Otter through a very long underground passage. It seemed that they walked for a very long time. However, finally they arrived at a part of the passage that was just under the ground. The passage let out into the open air. Mole could see the sunshine. Quickly the Badger let them out of the passage and said goodbye. The three animals thanked Badger for his kindness.

Now the Otter led them through the rest of the Wild Forest. The Otter was almost as powerful an animal as the Badger, so Mole and Rat felt safe with him. Finally they reached the forest end. They were looking at the green fields and the river was nearby. All of the animals were very happy to be going home, away from the dark forest.

Happily the animals hurried toward the river back to Rat’s house. As he ran, the Mole realized that he was really a field animal. He might live under the ground like Badger, but he also liked the little gardens and the fresh air and the sunshine. The Wild Forest was not his kind of place.