Mine Enemies 123 



I have seen cats quiver just as they are about to pounce upon 

 their prey, and I stood, potato-digger in hand, eager, but 

 hesitating; for the movement was under some young wall 

 flowers, and I could not sacrifice them. I waited until it 

 reached the asters, and with a swift animal pounce I drove the 

 digger deep into the earth and as quickly threw earth, asters 

 and mole out upon the walk. Ignorant of its blindness in the 

 bright sunlight I feared lest it should run away, and unequal 

 to despatching it, my mind reverted to my faithful killer, 

 Adam but where he was, heaven only knew. It was a wild 

 moment and wildly did I behave. For the first and only time 

 in my life I gave my lungs free rein and how I yelled ! It was 

 blood curdling. Flung to the winds were those thousands of 

 years of increasing self-control, of gentle aspiration, of calm- 

 ness and I only hoped that the winds would carry them to the 

 ears of the absent Adam. Thinking the garden was afire, or 

 some deadly disaster had overtaken me, he and my maid came 

 rushing to the rescue; and shamed was I, positively abased, 

 to confess the occasion of the ferocious clamor. 



While the prisoner was hurried away I determined to catch 

 more moles but differently. My ambition now was not so 

 much a capture, but to exercise some self-restraint, and only 

 when I should be able to catch one, clapping it into a flower- 

 pot, cover it calmly with another, and walk composedly to 

 Adam, wherever he was, and say sweetly and quietly " take 

 it" I should know that I had mastered self. So I watched, 

 flanked on one side by flower-pots, on the other by the useful 

 digger; but I had to catch four before I could quite conquer 

 my mad desire to shout for help. 



When my beds were filled with perennials I had to give up 

 my clawing operations; and now I find that common moth 

 balls dropped in each hole or runway are quite sufficient to 

 drive moles away. 



