Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Mr. Toad
It was a bright morning in the early days of summer. Shortly after breakfast there came a knock at Mole’s door. “See who it is, Mole, like a good fellow,” Rat said. “I am attending to my egg.”
Mole went to the door and uttered a cry of surprise. Then he threw the door open and announced (with an air of great importance), “Mr. Badger, welcome!”
“The hour has come!” declared Badger with great solemnity—or with as much solemnity as one could muster while wielding a boathook—as he stepped over the threshold.
“What hour?” asked Rat, looking over at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Whose hour, you should rather say,” replied Badger. “Why, Mr. Toad’s hour! The hour of Toad! We said we would take him in hand as soon as the winter was well over, and we are going to take him in hand today!”
“Toad’s hour—of course!” cried Mole in delight. “Hooray! I remember now! We’ll teach him to be sensible!”
“How right you are,” said Rat. “We’ll rescue the poor, unhappy animal! We’ll convert him—why, he’ll be the most converted Toad there ever was by the time we’re done with him.”
“This very morning,” continued Badger, settling into an armchair, “as I learned last night from a trustworthy source, another new and exceptionally powerful motorcar will arrive at Toad Hall. At this very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy readying himself to take a trip, without any of his friends. He may even now be preparing to run away from his friends who love him.”
“Even now,” Mole said, “he may be arraying himself in those disgusting motoring clothes which transform him from a comparatively bearable-looking Toad into an Object that throws any decent-minded person who comes across it into a violent fit.”
“A most violent fit,” Rat said. “Violent violent violent.”
“Shall I bring a boathook, too?” Mole asked.
“I don’t think so,” Badger said. “You might bring a heavy blanket, or a tarpaulin, in case we have to Drown him.”
“I don’t believe we have ever Drowned Toad before,” Mole said. “I suppose Helping is a bit like Drowning.”
“Whatever you’re going to bring along with you,” Badger said, “you’d better fetch it quick. We must be up and about, before it is too late and Toad gets away without any Help at all. You two had better come with me to Toad Hall, and we can start the work of rescuing him.”
“A most violent fit,” Rat said again. “A violent violent fit.”
They set off up the road at once, Badger leading the way and Rat dancing along behind, singing out, “A violent fit, a violent fit, a most violent violent violent fit,” with every step. They made for a very merry crew.
“I should like to Help Toad first,” Mole said. “Since I have known him the longest.”
“Hello, fellows,” Otter said, flinging his head above the riverbank and shaking the water from his muzzle. “What a noise you’re making! All the world seems out on the river today. What news?”
“We are going to Help our friend Toad,” Rat explained. “If I see him in his new motoring clothes, I am going to have a most violent fit. Then Mole is going to have a most violent fit. Then Badger is going to have a most—”
“Yes, I think I follow,” Otter said politely. “May I join you?”
“We already have a boathook, a tarpaulin, a shovel, two steering poles, a mattock, a garden fork, and a luncheon basket,” Badger said. “Have you got anything useful?”
“Just my net and fishing spear and a few lures,” Otter said. “Will that do?”
“It might,” Badger said.
“The more the merrier,” Rat said.
“Can’t be too prepared,” Mole said. “Come along.” Otter scampered up the bank, river water scattering off his back, and joined the line. Rat resumed his song as they walked to Toad Hall.
When they reached Toad Hall’s carriage house they found—just as Badger had said they would—a shiny new motorcar, gleaming all over, painted blue, sitting just out front. As they drew near the front door it flew wide open and Mr. Toad came down the steps, already decked out in his motoring goggles, trim little brown cap, and duster, drawing on his driving gloves. He caught sight of them on the third step and stopped neatly in his tracks.
“Oh, hullo, fellows,” he said. “I— Hullo. You’re just in time—just in time to come with me for a jolly—to come for a jolly—for a—” The invitation faltered and fell away as he looked at all the friendly faces around him.
“Toad, what time do you suppose it is?” Mole asked.
“I don’t know,” Toad said. He smiled very brightly at each one of his friends. “I don’t know. My head aches all of a sudden. I don’t suppose I will go out today after all. I don’t know.”
“It’s the hour of Toad!” Rat cried out merrily. “It’s your hour, my precious darling, and we’ve all been having the most violent fits.”
“Toad,” Badger said, resting against his boathook, “what do you suppose we’ve come to Help you with?”
“I think my head aches too much to answer questions,” Toad said, and if he was a little cross when he said it, we must excuse him, for his head did ache, a very great deal. “I think I’d better go back inside and lie down. Will you please excuse me?”
“No,” Mole said.
“Yes,” Rat said.
“I don’t think—” Toad began.
“Listen to your friend Rat,” Mole said.
“Listen to your friend Mole,” Rat said.
“Thank you, Rat,” Mole said.
“Thank you, Mole,” Rat said.
“There are so many things we want to Help you with, Toad,” said Badger.
Otter made a small noise in the back of his throat and shuffled gently up the stairs. “When are you going to invite us inside, Toad? We’ve come an awfully long way just to see you, and we’ve been carrying a great many heavy things.”
Rat danced happily up to the chauffeur sitting in the driver’s seat of the motorcar. “I’m afraid that nobody is going to need you today,” he said. “Mr. Toad has changed his mind, and will not require the car. You needn’t wait for him to change his mind, either. Mr. Toad never changes his mind but once.”
“Think of what fun we’ll have, Toady,” Mole said, “once you’ve quite gotten over this painful attack of yours. We’ll take great care of everything for you until you’re well again.”
After a few minutes everyone—with the exception of the chauffeur, who was no longer wanted by anybody—went inside the house. Mole was a little out of breath, and Badger had the slightest of cuts over his right eye, but otherwise the entire rescue party was in fine spirits.
Toad spent a lot of time with his friends Badger, Mole, Rat, and Otter in the Wild Woods where they all lived. Here are a few of the things that happened to him.
The Noise
One day Toad went walking out in the Wild Woods to be by himself. As he was walking, he came to an empty place in the middle of the forest. But the middle of the empty place wasn’t empty at all—there was a hole in the ground. And from inside the hole came a heavy sort of humming noise. Toad didn’t mind the noise. He sat down at the edge of the hole, hung his head between his knees, and closed his eyes. He would only be by himself for a minute. He was never alone for very long in the Wild Woods, because the Wild Woods were full of Mr. Toad’s friends, and you are never alone, as long as you have friends.
Then Toad said to himself: “That humming noise has to mean something. I’ve never heard a noise like that without something making it. If there is a humming noise, then something is making a humming noise, and the only thing I know of that makes a humming noise like that is a motorcar.” So Toad dropped his legs over the side and swung round and grasped the edge of the hole with his forefeet, lowering himself bit by bit into the darkness.
Eventually Mole wandered into the clearing and took an interest. “Hello, Toad,” he called down into the hole. “What are you doing down there?”
“I heard a noise,” came a voice from very deep within the hole. “And I thought there might be something making the noise.”
“I don’t think you’ll find anything down there but more noise,” Mole said. “Why don’t you climb back up to where I am?”
“I can do it,” Toad said.
“No, you can’t,” Mole said in a sorrowful voice. “Your hands are tired. Your wrists are aching. Your head hurts. There’s dirt in your mouth and the stones are cutting your feet. And the farther down you go, the worse it gets.”
“I can do it,” Toad said.
“I have to tell you something about the humming noise, Toad,” Mole said. “It knows your name and doesn’t like it. It knows who you are, and it doesn’t like that either.”
Toad kept climbing down.
“It knows that you’re trying to get to it,” Mole said, “and it likes that least of all. It’s a gray sort of buzzing, isn’t it, heavy and dull, and it makes your head spin, doesn’t it?”
Toad said nothing, because his head was spinning. Mole was always right about that sort of thing.
“Why don’t you come back up, where all your friends are here to see you?” Mole said.
“I haven’t got any friends up there,” Toad said.
“How can you say that,” Rat asked, stepping out from behind Mole and peering down past the edge of the hole, “when you know we’re the best friends you have in the whole world?”
“It’s very sad that he would say that to us,” Mole said to Rat.
“Very sad indeed,” Rat said. “I’m going to cry unless Toad climbs out of that hole right now.”
Finally Toad came back out. His head hurt, and his wrists were aching, and the stones cut his feet, and it didn’t get any better when he reached the ground. And he was still hungry. He was so hungry that he fell over, and he tasted the dirt in his mouth.
“What a mess you look,” Rat said.
“I’m hungry,” said Toad. “I’m sorry. It’s because I’m hungry.”
“How can you be hungry,” Mole said, “when you’ve just eaten every bite of the picnic lunch that Rat and I brought to share between ourselves?”
“I haven’t had any picnic,” Toad said, and tried to lift his arm to wipe his mouth. “I haven’t had anything at all.”
“It was very rude of you,” Rat said, “to take all the picnic lunch for yourself and not to offer even a little tiny bite to your friends.”
“I’m sorry,” Toad said to the dirt.
“We don’t want you to be sorry,” Mole said. “We just wish you would think of someone else once in a while. Toad, there’s a picnic basket in that motorcar sitting at the bottom of that hole just below us. Why don’t you climb down and bring it up?”
“All right,” Toad said after a minute, and slowly lowered himself back down into the hole.
After Toad had begun to climb down, Rat shouted down after him, “Now, Toady, I don’t want to give you pain—not after all you’ve been through already—but don’t you see what a terrible ass you’ve been making of yourself? Handcuffed, imprisoned, starved, beaten, chased, jeered at, insulted, and terrified half out of your wits—where’s the fun in that?”
“And all because you must go around stealing motorcars,” Mole said. “You know you’ve never had anything but trouble from motorcars from the moment you first set eyes on one.”
“If you must be mixed up with them,” Rat said, “why steal them? Be a madman, if you think it’s exciting; be bankrupt for a change, if you really set your mind to it; but why choose to be a convict? When are you going to be sensible and think of your friends, and try to be a credit to them? Do you suppose it’s any pleasure for me, for instance, to hear people saying, as I go about, that I’m the chap that keeps company with gaolbirds?”
There was no answer from the hole at their feet except for the humming sound. Rat picked up a rock in his hand and weighed it thoughtfully. He shook his head.
“He brings it on himself,” Mole said tragically.
Mr. Toad Gets a New House
It was a very commendable point of Toad’s character that he never minded being jawed by any of his friends, who really did have his best interests at heart, and always forgave them after each episode. After the business with the humming sound in the hole (“And what a time we had taking care of you after that,” Rat had said), Toad spent a few days lying very quietly on the floor with a cold washcloth over his eyes at Mole’s house.
After about a week had passed, Toad began to speak of going home. “You’ve been quite right, Mole—I’ve been terribly conceited, I can see that now—but I’m going to be quite a good Toad from now on, and not go bothering with motorcars or holes in the ground or anything of the sort. I’m not so keen at all on motorcars now.” He spoke very rapidly and without sitting up. “The fact is, I had the idea that I might take a nice quiet trip on a riverboat and— There, there! Don’t take on so, Mole, and stamp and upset things; it was only an idea, and we won’t talk any more about it now. We’ll have our coffee, and a smoke, and then I’ll go on home to Toad Hall, and back into my own clothes, and set things going again along the old lines. I’ve had quite enough of adventures, I can assure you. I shall lead a quiet, steady, respectable life, one that would make any of you proud to own me to anyone who asked. I shall potter about the property, making little improvements—nothing out of sorts, of course—doing a little gardening, and always having a bit of dinner ready for my friends when they come to see me, just as I used to in the good old days, before I got restless and wanted to do things.”
“Go on home to Toad Hall?” asked Mole, quite excited. “What are you talking of? Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” asked Toad, turning over to face him. “Go on, dearest! Quick, don’t spare me—what haven’t I heard?”
Just then there came a knock at the door, and Mole jumped up to answer it. “Hello, Rat,” he said (for it was Rat at the door). “Have you come here to tell Toad the bad news?”
“Hello, Mole,” said Rat, very politely. “I thought you were out.”
“Hello, Rat,” Mole said again. “I don’t believe that I am. I thought it was you who was out.”
“As you like it, I’m sure,” Rat said. “Won’t you invite me in?”
“As you like it, I’m sure,” Mole said, and stepped aside to make room for Rat, who immediately went into the kitchen and began boiling the water for tea.
“Rat,” Mole said after a moment. “I have absolutely terrible news for Toad.”
“Terrible news?”
“Just terrible news.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that.”
“I thought you’d be sorry to hear that, Rat,” Mole said. “You’re always very sympathetic.”
“Is it the terrible news about his home?” Rat asked. “The terrible news about Toad Hall?”
“The very same terrible news,” Mole said. “The very exact same terrible news about his home, Toad Hall.”
“Oh, dear,” Rat said, pouring two cups of tea, one for Mole and one for himself.
“Oh, dear,” Mole said. “No sugar in mine, thanks.”
Toad lifted himself up so he could see what was going on in the kitchen. “What has happened to Toad Hall?”
“I think it’s very sad, what happened to Toad Hall,” Mole said to Rat. “Won’t you come and sit by the fire while we have our tea?”
“Thank you,” Rat said, and the two of them took their tea back into the parlor where Toad was half twisted up from his pallet on the floor.
“I think it’s very sad that our friend Toad doesn’t have a house,” Rat said. “I have a house, and you have a house, and Badger has a little house, too. Even Otter has a house of sorts. I think it is very sad that Toad is the only one who hasn’t even the least little bit of a house.”
“He used to have a house,” Mole said. “A very fine one too, was Toad Hall.”
“Will someone please tell me what has happened to Toad Hall,” Toad said desperately.
“Oh,” said Mole, “you haven’t heard what’s happened to Toad Hall? Well, it was a good deal talked about down here, naturally—not only along the riverbanks, but even in the Wild Woods.”
“Very strange, your not hearing of it,” Rat said, “how They went and took Toad Hall, while you’ve been so sick lately.”
“They made arrangements, while you were ill,” Mole said. “They said anyone as sick in the head as you have been was not likely to return home anytime soon—and you must admit They had a point, for you have been distressing us all terribly with your behavior lately—and They decided They had better move Their things into Toad Hall, and sleep there, and make sure everything was ready for you when you turned up, if you ever turned up.”
Toad only nodded.
“If you ever turn up,” Rat said, “I expect They will still be there waiting for you. Some of Them came in through the carriage drive, and some of Them came in through the kitchens and the gardens, and some of Them came in through the French windows that open onto the lawn, and I expect all of Them are still there waiting for you.”
“People took sides about it,” Mole said, “naturally. I think it was a terrible shame, no matter what people say about you, no matter how often folks said you were never coming back.”
“Never, never, never coming back,” Rat agreed. “This is excellent tea, Mole.”
“Thank yourself,” Mole said. “You made it.”
“So I did,” Rat said, taking another sip.
“But we knew you would be back to your old self in no time,” Mole said to Toad after a few minutes’ silence, “and that you would be eager to go back to Toad Hall and clear Them out, even if no one else went with you, and you had to creep back all by yourself in the darkness to whatever met you behind your own front doors.”
“We knew,” Rat agreed. “We knew you’d as good as promised to go back and clear Them out.”
“But he hasn’t gone back and cleared Them out, has he, Rat?” Mole asked.
“No, Mole,” Rat said slowly, “come to think of it, he hasn’t. Toad hasn’t kept his promise at all. Why do you suppose that is?” And he turned to ask him, but Toad was nowhere to be seen. “Toad,” Rat said. “Where have you got to, and why haven’t you kept your promise?”
Mole jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Toad is hiding among the pots and pans,” he said. “I expect he is hiding because he is so ashamed of being a coward.”
“Toad,” Rat called, “are you hiding among the pots and pans?”
“Toad,” Mole said, “why would you rather be with the pots and pans than with your friends? Come out and have a visit with us.”
After a moment, the cupboard door opened, and Toad crept out. He crawled along the floor until he was back at Mole’s feet.
“Toad,” Mole said sternly, “you promised to go back and clear Toad Hall of all your enemies who are living there, sleeping in your beds and drinking your tea. Why haven’t you done it?”
“Toad,” Rat said, “did you mean it when you promised you would go back and clear out Toad Hall, or were you telling a lie?”
“I didn’t,” Toad said. “Or, I mean, I didn’t tell a lie or make a promise either. I didn’t even know there was anybody else in my house until you told me, just now.”
“At the very least,” Mole said in an injured tone, “I would think you would want to go back to Toad Hall so you could invite Rat and myself over for tea, after all the hospitality I’ve shown you since you’ve been so ill.”
“I would so like to have tea,” Rat said, setting down his cup. “I haven’t had any tea in the longest time, and Mole hasn’t either—he’s been too busy worrying himself over you.”
“Toad,” Mole said, “you are a very good friend, only I wish you would tell the truth, because you always feel so sick when you tell lies. You did promise you would sweep Toad Hall clear of all your enemies, and I think it’s high time you got up off my parlor floor and went home to find out what was living there.”
“I know I didn’t,” Toad said. “I know I didn’t.”
“Then why do you feel so sick right now?” Mole asked.
“I don’t,” Toad said. “I don’t feel sick, I don’t, I don’t.”
“Then why can’t you stand back up?” Mole said. “And why does your head feel so funny?”
“I don’t know,” Toad said. “Maybe—”
“I think you are telling lies again. I think you would feel better if you told us the truth. Would you like to feel better?”
“Yes,” Toad said in a small misery voice.
“Would you like to be able to get up again?” Mole asked.
“Yes,” Toad said.
“I can’t hear you when you mumble, Toad,” Mole said. “Did you say yes?”
“Yes,” said Toad, turning his head.
“I would like it if you felt better and could get up again,” Mole said. “Wouldn’t you, Rat? Wouldn’t we all like it if Toad would tell us the truth and feel better?”
“I would,” Rat said.
“We both want you to feel better,” Mole said. “It makes us sick too when you tell lies.”
“I feel terribly sick,” Rat said, pouring himself another cup. “Every time Toad tells a lie, I feel sick.”
“I’m sorry I told you a lie, Rat,” Toad said.
“Do you forgive him, Rat?” Mole said.
“I forgive him,” Rat said. “I forgive you, Toad.”
“Are you going to go to Toad Hall, and see all of Them who have been living there and saying such hateful things about you, and about all the things they would like to do to you if they got their hands on you, and keep your promise, Toad?” Mole asked. “You don’t have to say yes again if it hurts to talk. You can just nod.”
Toad nodded.
“Are you going to start now?” Mole asked.
Toad nodded.
“Do you need help getting up, so you can start keeping your promise?” Mole asked.
Toad nodded, and his friends helped him get up. He only wobbled a little as he went out the front door.