THE TURTLE
A week before we were to go to Oak Cliff William began to groom us
every morning and evening. We were rubbed all over with a cloth that
was wet with something that smelled good and left our coats smooth and
glossy. We were brushed, too, and our claws were cut and our teeth were
cleaned and he even washed our ears! I stood everything very well but
that. I do hate to have my ears washed. Don’t you?
As for that bare spot on the end of my tail, poor William worked and
worked and fussed and fussed and worried and worried over that. “I’m
thinking,” he told me once, “that it would be fine if you’d wag your
tail hard when the judge is looking at you and maybe he won’t see where
the hair’s off!” I suspected that William put some sort of medicine
in our food those days. I couldn’t find it, but there was a little
different taste to things. I think that is a very mean thing to do to
a dog. Poor Freya had a hard time getting enough to eat that week,
because William said she was a little too fat and so he only gave her
about half what he usually did. Sometimes, if I wasn’t awfully hungry
and William wasn’t looking, I’d leave a little in my dish and let her
finish it.
Of course all the attention we had took a lot of time and it was hard
to stay quiet so long. But I went through with it as best I could
because I knew that the nicer I looked at the show the more likely I
was to get a pretty ribbon. The worst of it was that after William had
groomed us we were supposed to be very good and keep ourselves clean.
That wasn’t much trouble for Freya. She liked being fussed over and I
think she was glad of an excuse to be lazy and lie around in the sun
and not go hunting. But it wasn’t so easy for me, and try as hard
as I might I seemed to be always getting into scrapes. Like the time I
caught the turtle.
William had just fixed me all up until I felt much too clean for
comfort and told me to be good and not get dirty. I really meant to
obey him, but I didn’t think it was much fun to just lie around the
stable and so I asked Freya to go for a run with me. She wouldn’t,
though. She said William wouldn’t like it if she did. So I went off
alone and wandered down into the meadow and chased grasshoppers for
awhile. There isn’t much fun in that, though. They’re not good to eat
when you catch them. So I went on down to the brook and presently I saw
the funniest looking thing you can imagine. When I told Mother about
it afterwards she said it was a turtle, but I didn’t know what it was
then because I had never seen one before. It lived in a shell that
was a sort of greenish-brown on top and yellow underneath. There were
two funny little paws on each side and a funny little tail behind and
a much funnier little head in front, and it was crawling along very
slowly toward the brook. I watched it a minute and then I ran up to it
and barked. Then it did the queerest thing! Instead of barking back or
saying “quack” like the ducks or “cluck” like the hens it just pulled
itself inside that shell until there wasn’t anything in sight but the
place it lived!
[Illustration: I had never seen one before]
I thought that was very impolite and so I turned it over with my nose
and barked again. But it wouldn’t come out. I barked at it a long time
but it did no good, and then I lay down a little ways off and watched.
Pretty soon the turtle thought I’d gone away and out came his head
very, very slowly and he looked around with two little glittering
yellow eyes. I think he was quite surprised to find himself on his
back. He looked surprised, anyway, and he worked his paws and tried to
turn himself over. Then he saw me, I guess, for he went back into his
house very quickly again.
“You are a very stupid fellow,” I said, “whatever you are. Come on out
and play.”
But he wouldn’t, and so pretty soon I went over to him and patted him
with my paw. That didn’t bring him out, either. I made up my mind then
that I’d take him home to Mother and ask her what he was. So I just
picked him up in my mouth, house and all, and started along the brook
with him. I had gone just a little ways when I felt a sharp pain in my
lip, and I looked and that turtle had put his head out and was biting
me! You may believe that I let go of him pretty quick! But he wouldn’t
let go of me. He hung right on to my lip and swung there. I pawed at
him and rubbed my head on the ground and howled, but it did no good.
That turtle held on tight. By that time he was hurting a lot and I
began to yelp and roll around and shake my head and do everything I
could think of to get rid of him. And in the middle of it I slipped
over the side of the bank and rolled down into the brook on my back!
After that I don’t remember just what did happen for a minute or two.
I know that the turtle was still there and that I stuck my head into
the mud and rolled over and over in the water and had an awful time
and almost drowned myself before that horrid turtle finally let go of
me. When I crawled out I was covered with mud and water and my lip was
bleeding and I was shaking all over. I laid down for a while on the
bank to get my breath and then I went back to the stable, hoping I
could get behind the flower-pots before William saw me. But I didn’t.
He was washing a carriage, and Father was helping him, when I got
there, and he saw me before I could get by. My, but he was angry!
He just took hold of me by the neck and held me with one hand and
turned the hose on me with the other. Being washed with a hose is very
unpleasant. The water gets in your eyes and mouth and ears. I had a
very bad time of it. William scolded and scolded until he saw the place
on my lip where the turtle had bitten me. Then he was sorry for me and
dried me with a big chamois-skin and put some salve on the wound and it
felt better. And I crawled behind the flower-pots and went to sleep.
Turtles and toads and ducks and bees are not good for dogs. They don’t
play fair. It’s funny the lot of trouble I got into down by that brook.
There was the time the duck “quacked” at me and I fell into the mud and
the time the toad poisoned my mouth and the time the turtle bit me. You
would think that I’d have learned to stay away from the brook, but I
never did.