Once there was a man who lived in Buenos Aires and was a friend of the
superintendent of the Zoo. This man had a very happy life, because he
worked hard and enjoyed good health. But one day he fell ill, and the
doctors told him he would never get well unless he left town and went to
live in the country where there was good air and a warm climate. The man
could not think of such a thing, however. He had five little brothers,
and both his parents were dead. He had to provide the little boys with
food and clothes, and get them ready for school in the morning. Who
would care for them, if he went away? So he kept on with his work and
his illness grew worse and worse.
One day a man from the Zoo met him on the street and said:
"You ought to go and live an out-of-door life for a while. Now, I have
an idea. We need a collection of new specimens for our museum, and you
are a good shot with a gun. Wouldn't you like to go up into the Andes
and hunt for us? I will pay for your outfit, and get a woman to look
after your little brothers. It will not cost you very much, and there
will be plenty of money left for the boys."
The sick man gladly accepted. He went off to the mountains, many, many
miles beyond Misiones, where he camped in the open air and soon began to
get better.
He lived quite by himself, doing his own cooking, washing his own
clothes, and making his own bed, which was a bag with blankets in it. He
did not use a tent, but slept in the bag out under the stars. When it
rained he would throw up a shelter of branches, cover it with his
waterproof, and sit down all cozy underneath, till the storm cleared. He
ate partridges and venison, with the berries and wild fruits he found
along the mountains. Whenever he saw some rare animal that the Zoo would
want, he shot it, and dried its skin in the sun. In course of time, he
made a big bundle of such skins, which he carried on his shoulder
whenever he moved his camp to a new place. Many beautifully spotted
snakes he was able to catch alive; and these he kept in a big hollow
gourd--for in South America wild squashes and pumpkins grow till they
are as large as gasoline cans.
All this was very hard work but the man grew strong and healthy again.
And what an appetite he had when supper time came around! One day when
his provisions were getting low, he went out hunting with his gun. Soon
he came to a wide lake, and what should he see on the shore but a huge
panther that had caught a tortoise! The fierce animal had drawn the
turtle up out of the water and was clawing between the two shells trying
to scratch the meat out. As the man approached, the panther turned and,
with a great roar, leaped toward him. The panther was not quick enough,
however, for a bullet from the man's rifle caught him between the eyes
and laid him low in his tracks.
"What a wonderful rug this skin will make for somebody!" the man
exclaimed; and he carefully removed the hide and rolled it up to take
home.
"I think I will have turtle soup for supper tonight," the man continued
as he turned toward the tortoise; for turtle-flesh is one of the richest
and sweetest of all meats.
But he could not help feeling very sorry for the poor turtle when he saw
what a plight she was in. The panther's claws had torn the flesh
terribly; and a great gash in her throat had all but left her head
severed from the rest of the body. Instead of killing the wounded turtle
the hunter thought he would try to cure her of her hurts.
[Illustration: "He could not help feeling sorry for the poor
turtle...."]
The camp was some distance away and the man was very tired. Besides,
when he tried to lift the tortoise, he found she weighed nearly two
hundred pounds. Finally he put a rope around her, and pulled and hauled
till he dragged her along over the grass back to the camp.
The man had no extra pieces of cloth to make a bandage with, so he cut
off a piece of his shirt and took the lining out of his coat. Finally he
managed to bind up the tortoise's throat and stop the bleeding. Then he
pushed her into a corner of the shelter, where she lay motionless for
days and days. Twice a day the man would come and wash the wound with
water and liniment. When he thought the cut had healed, he took off the
wrapping and the tortoise drew her head into her shell. The man kept
visiting her every morning, however, tapping gently on the turtle's back
to wake her up.
The tortoise got entirely well; but then something terrible happened.
The man caught a fever in the swamps around the lake, and chills and
pains began to wrack his body. One morning he could not get out of his
sleeping bag, but just lay there groaning. His fever got rapidly worse,
and a parching thirst burned at his throat. In his delirium he began to
talk out loud: "Here I am all alone, away out here in the woods. I am
surely going to die. There is no one even to bring me a drink of water."
But the tortoise, all this time, had not been sleeping so soundly as the
man had thought. In fact, she had been slyly watching him as he worked
about the camp. When the hunter did not get up that morning, the
tortoise understood that something was wrong, and also that it was water
he kept calling for.
"This man," thought the tortoise, "did not eat me that day, though he
had me in his power and was hungry. Instead, he took care of me till I
was well. A good tortoise ought surely to do as much for him!"
The big turtle--she stood as high as a chair and weighed, as I said, as
much as a man--crawled off to the lakeside. There she hunted around till
she found a small tortoise shell. She polished it with sand till it was
bright and shiny. Then she filled it with pure cold water from a spring,
crawled back to camp with it, and gave the man a drink.
"Now for something to eat," said the turtle.
Turtles know the most peculiar kinds of roots and grasses to eat when
they are sick. This tortoise went out and gathered a supply of such
herbs and fed them to the man; and he ate them without noticing who was
finding his food for him, so nearly unconscious was he in his delirium.
So day after day the tortoise went hunting and hunting over the mountain
sides, looking for tenderer and tenderer grasses with stronger and
stronger juices. And how sorry she was she could not climb trees where
such fine berries and fruits were hanging!
Thus the hunter lay for a week or more, struggling between life and
death and kept alive only by the herbs the tortoise brought him. And
then one day, to the joy of the faithful animal, the man sat up in his
sleeping bag. The fever had left him and his mind was clear. He looked
around in surprise to see the water and a bundle of grasses near him;
for he was quite alone, save for the big turtle that still seemed to be
sleeping in her corner.
"Alas, I am lost!" he moaned. "No one will ever come to me. The fever
will return, and I cannot get any medicine nearer than Buenos Aires. If
I could walk, I might get there; but I can't, so I must die!"
And, just as he feared, the fever did return that evening worse than
before; and the man fell back into unconsciousness.
But again the turtle had understood: "Yes, he will die, if he stays
here! I must get him to Buenos Aires where there is some medicine!"
Carefully she dragged the bundle of skins up to the man and placed it in
position on his body. Then she did the same with the gourd full of
snakes. And what a task it was to get the gun in place on top of the
whole pile! Finally she went out into the woods and bit off a number of
tough, strong vines. These she stretched across the sleeping man and
tied to his arms and legs in such a way as to keep the baggage from
falling off. She dug her way under the sleeping bag till everything was
balanced on her back; and then she started off toward Buenos Aires.
She crawled along for ten or twelve hours each day, swimming rivers and
ponds, sinking deep into the mud of bogs, climbing hills and crossing
sandy plains where the sun at midday scorched terribly. In his fever the
man kept calling for water; and it was very trying to the poor tortoise
to have to get the man off her back each time while she went looking for
a drink for him. But she struggled forward just the same, and each night
she knew she was that much nearer to Buenos Aires.
But the tortoise, after days and days of this toil, understood that her
own strength was giving out. She did not complain, but she began to be
afraid that she would die before getting the hunter to a place of
safety. And one morning, in fact, she was so tired she was quite unable
to move.
"Here I am dying all alone in the woods!" the man moaned from his bag.
"No one will help me get to Buenos Aires! Oh, oh, I shall die here all
alone!"
You see, the man had been unconscious all the time, and thought he was
still lying in the shelter, away back in the mountains.
The words stirred the weary tortoise to fresh effort. She got the man up
on her back again and went on.
But the moment came when she could not take another step forward. She
had not been eating for some days, because she had not dared take the
time for hunting. Now she was too weak to do even that. So she drew her
legs into her shell and closed her eyes, waiting for death to come, and
mourning inside her turtle-heart that she had failed in saving the life
of the man who had befriended her.
The sun went down and night fell. As the turtle chanced to open her
eyes, she was surprised to see a reddish glow on the distant horizon;
and she heard a voice--the voice of a wharf rat--talking near by. The
rat was saying:
"My, what a turtle, what a turtle! I never saw such a big one in my
life! And what is that on her back? A cord of wood?"
The poor turtle did not know that those lights came from Buenos Aires,
and that the rat was a citizen of that town, out for a night's foraging
in the fields of the suburbs.
"It is not a cord of wood," the turtle murmured, "It is a man, a sick
man!"
"And what on earth are you doing here with a man on your back?" the rat
inquired, laughing the way rats from the city laugh at their country
cousins.
"I ... I was ..." the tortoise murmured faintly, "I was taking him to
Buenos Aires to be cured ... but I shall never get there.... My strength
has given out.... I am going to die ... we are both going to die, right
here!"
"I never saw such a silly turtle!" the rat replied. "Don't you know
you're in Buenos Aires now? Don't you see those lights? They're from the
theater district. Go along straight ahead; and you'll get there in no
time!"
This encouraging news filled the tortoise with new life. She strained
every muscle inside her shell and moved slowly but surely forward.
When it was daylight she found herself quite inside the town. And who
should come along the street but the superintendent of the Zoo!
"My, what a turtle! What a big turtle!" he exclaimed. "And what in the
world is she carrying on her back?"
The tortoise could not speak from sheer fatigue. She stopped, and the
man came up to examine the strange outfit on her back. To his amazement,
he recognized his friend in the man sleeping, pale and fever-stricken,
inside the bag. He called a carriage and got the man home, sending for a
doctor to come at once.
In course of time, the man got well. When he learned that the tortoise
had brought him miles and miles on her back, all the way from the Andes
to Buenos Aires, he could hardly believe the story. And out of gratitude
he said he would make a home for her the rest of her life. His own
cottage was quite filled with his six little brothers; and there was no
room for such a big pet in the house. But the director of the Zoo said
he would find a place for her there, and care for her as tenderly as he
would for his own daughter.
And that is what happened. The tortoise was given a house for herself
alone, with a tank of water in the front yard, where she could swim if
she wanted to. She was allowed to wander at will over all the gardens of
the Zoo, though she spent a large part of her time near the monkey
house, where there was most to eat.
And she is still living there. Go to the zoölogical park any day and you
will see an enormously big tortoise crawling slowly along over the green
grass. If you wait long enough you will see a man come up, stoop over
and rap gently with his knuckles on her shell.
That's the tortoise we have been talking about--and that's the man!
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