word of the day: adit
Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society have been looking for a little girl who has gone missing. They follow a lead through a rough tunnel, but upon emerging and asking a local if a girl has been seen passing that way, they are told no, no little girls. Determined to retrace their steps,
with a hurried but courteous adieu [to the local, Miss Bianca] ran back towards the adit, and Bernard of course followed. He was pretty dauntless himself, but actually it was one of the bravest things they’d either of them ever done, to leave the upper air and plunge back into the deep, dark, pickaxe-booby-trapped … brute of a Main Drain [tunnel.]
definition (Merriam-Webster): a nearly horizontal passage from the surface in a mine
source:
Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid
by Margery Sharp
illustrated by Erik Blegveld
1972. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA
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