The Wind in the Willows

Name: The Wind in the Willows
Author: Kenneth Grahame

by Kenneth Grahame

Pages: about 196
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 3.6 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 2 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

“Ratty,” said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, “if you please, I want to ask you a favour.”
The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay proper attention to Mole or anything else. Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water. At last they implored him to go away and attend to his own affairs and leave them to mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the river bank in the sun, and made up a song about them, which he called
All along the backwater, Through the rushes tall, Ducks are a-dabbling, Up tails all! Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails, Yellow feet a-quiver, Yellow bills all out of sight Busy in the river!
Slushy green undergrowth Where the roach swim— Here we keep our larder, Cool and full and dim.
Everyone for what he likes! We like to be Heads down, tails up, Dabbling free!
High in the blue above Swifts whirl and call— We are down a-dabbling Uptails all!
“I don’t know that I think so very much of that little song, Rat,” observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn’t care who knew it; and he had a candid nature.
“Nor don’t the ducks neither,” replied the Rat cheerfully.

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The Wind in the Willows

From the opening

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