One summer night he sprang from his bed with a shriek of pain, and clutched his face. Between his yells, Goodwife Mole discovered he had a toothache. Poor fellow! First Goodwife ran with hot applications, then with cold; she put poultices outside and drops inside. Nothing seemed to help him in the least. Towards dawn, she tied his head up in a woolen muffler and brought him his pipe, and he quieted down a bit. After the first whiff of smoke, he began to talk, and Goodwife patiently settled herself for a long long listen.
»It’s queer about this toothache,« he said, »I dreamed about it before I woke up and had it. I dreamed I was over in the clearing, tied to that tall green pine tree. The moon was shining as calmly as the still eye of a fish, and the whole forest was quiet. But suddenly, I heard people talking to me, and I looked over the moonlit path and saw a great circle of the queerest things sitting beyond me! They were my teeth! My molars and incisors and eye teeth—they were all there holding court. The big molar was the judge, and he listened to the others complaining about me. Then he, too, added his bitter story, and they declared that I had caused them great pain when they were forced by me to crunch the tender bones. . .«
»Bones!« Goodwife Mole fairly shrieked it. »Bones! Oh, Mole, surely you haven’t been eating those poor little fledglings again.«
»Ow! Ow!« screamed Old Mole as he was about to answer »no« to her complaints. He flung his pipe across the doorsill and raced up and down the floor, his head rocking between his paws. Goodwife hurried with all the medicines in the house, and a drink of water as well, but nothing helped poor Mole.
»Ten thousand knives are drilling through my brain,« he screamed. »Oh, my teeth, my tooth, my teeth.«
At nine o’clock he went to see the dentist.
