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. 
