ke good care of my
new sunshade. And please don't forget to return it!" he added anxiously.

"I'll leave it right here for you," Mr. Meadow Mouse promised.

Though Grandfather Mole was far from satisfied he crawled into the
ground and left Mr. Meadow Mouse to enjoy the rain pattering on the top
of the toadstool. And the next day, to his great relief, Grandfather
Mole found his sunshade in the same spot. Mr. Meadow Mouse hadn't taken
it away. To tell the truth, he had tried to; but he had found that he
couldn't move it. Grandfather Mole said it was the first sunshade that a
borrower had ever returned to him.

And that was the truth. For he had never owned a sunshade before.

XVI

GRANDFATHER MOLE'S VISITOR

WHATEVER Grandfather Mole's neighbors might say of him, they never could
claim that he was lazy. He was always busy. When he wasn't eating or
sleeping you could be quite sure that he was digging. He never seemed to
be satisfied with his house, but was forever making what he called
"improvements." If there was one thing he liked, it was plenty of halls.
He had halls running in every direction. And since a person could never
tell in which one Grandfather Mole might be, visitors might roam about
his dark galleries a long time without finding him.

If anybody happened to point out to Grandfather Mole that his house had
such a drawback, Grandfather Mole always answered that he liked his
house just as it was and that he wouldn't change it for anything--except
to add a few more halls.

He was very set in his ways. He claimed that he wouldn't be comfortable
in a house that had maybe only two halls--a front and a back one, as
Billy Woodchuck's dwelling was known to contain.

Maybe that was the reason why Grandfather Mole never went visiting. And
as for anybody else visiting him--well, what was the use when most
likely you never could find him?

Nevertheless there was one of Grandfather Mole's neighbors who called at
his house frequently, and for the very reason that he knew he could
probably do exactly as he pleased. Far from trying to find Grandfather
Mole, Mr. Meadow Mouse always took pains to avoid him. And if by chance
he met Grandfather Mole in one of his galleries Mr. Meadow Mouse was
always extremely polite--and ready to run at a moment's notice.

During corn-planting time Mr. Meadow Mouse went regularly down into a
gallery of Grandfather Mole's that ran under a corner of the cornfield.
And somehow