The seasons changed, and years passed.
The four friends grew old.
Rat and Mole rowed on the river less.
Toad stayed indoors most days.
Their neighbors wondered about them.
"Have you seen Rat and Mole?" they asked.
"Do you know what Toad is doing?"
But once in a while, the friends did go out.
Then the Riverbankers noticed.
When Toad went for a walk, they pointed.
"There goes the modest Mr. Toad."
"He is such a polite gentleman."
When Rat and Mole went boating, young Riverbankers shouted:
"Look! There's the great fighter, Water Rat!"
The older ones said, "And there's good old Mole!"
Toad, Rat, Mole, and Badger were famous.
The reason was simple:
Rat wrote a fine poem.
It told the story of the great fight at Toad Hall.
All the Riverbankers read it.
Friends told the story to each other.
Parents read the story to their children.
Everyone told new tales about the friends.
In these tales, Badger was always the scariest.
"Badger is mean!" mothers told their children.
"Be good or Badger will get you!"
These stories about Badger were wrong.
True, he didn't like crowds.
But he loved children.
The stories about the friends were told and retold.
The tales became the music of the reeds.
The poems became the song of the woods.
And all became part of the wind in the willows.
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