When the twenty little Mud Turtles broke their egg-shells one hot summer
day, and poked their way up through the warm sand in which they had been
buried, they looked almost as much alike as so many raindrops. The
Mother Turtle who was sunning herself on the bank near by, said to her
friends, "Why! There are my children! Did you ever see a finer family? I
believe I will go over and speak to them."
Most of the young Mud Turtles crawled quickly out of the sand and broken
shells, and began drying themselves in the sunshine. One slow little
fellow stopped to look at the broken shells, stubbed one of his front
toes on a large piece and then sat down until it should stop aching.
"Wait for me!" he called out to his brothers and sisters. "I'm coming in
a minute."
The other little Turtles waited, but when his toe was comfortable again
and he started toward them, he met a very interesting Snail and talked a
while with him. "Come on," said the Biggest Little Turtle. "Don't let's
wait any longer. He can catch up."
So they sprawled along until they came to a place where they could sit
in a row on an old log, and they climbed onto it and sat just close
enough together and not at all too close. Then the Slow Little Turtle
came hurrying over the sand with a rather cross look in his eyes and
putting his feet down a little harder than he needed to--quite as though
he were out of patience about something. "Why didn't you Turtles wait
for me?" he grumbled. "I was coming right along."
[Illustration: "GOOD MORNING," SAID SHE. "I BELIEVE
YOU ARE MY CHILDREN?" _Page 85_]
Just then the Mother Turtle came up. "Good morning," said she. "I
believe you are my children?"
The little Mud Turtles looked at each other and didn't say a word. This
was not because they were rude or bashful, but because they did not know
what to say. And that, you know, was quite right, for unless one has
something worth saying, it is far better to say nothing at all.
She drew a long Mud Turtle breath and answered her own question. "Yes,"
she said, "you certainly are, for I saw you scrambling out of the sand a
little while ago, and you came from the very place where I laid my eggs
and covered them during the first really warm nights this year. I was
telling your father only yesterday that it was about time for you to
hatch. The sun has been so hot lately that I was sure you would do
well."
The Mother Turtle stretched her head this way and that until there was
hardly a wrinkle left in her neck-skin, she was so eager to see them
all. "Why are you not up here with your brothers and sisters?" she asked
suddenly of the Slow Little Turtle, who was trying to make a place for
himself on the log.
"They didn't wait for me," he said. "I was coming right along but they
wouldn't wait. I think they are just as mea----"
The Mother Turtle raised one of her forefeet until all five of its toes
with their strong claws were pointing at him. She also raised her head
as far as her upper shell would let her. "So you _are_ the one," she
said. "I thought you were when I heard you trying to make the others
wait. It is too bad."
She looked so stern that the Slow Little Turtle didn't dare finish what
he had begun to say, yet down in his little Turtle heart he thought,
"Now they are going to catch it!" He was sure his mother was going to
scold the other Turtle children for leaving him. He wanted to see what
they would do, so he looked out of his right eye at the ten brothers and
sisters on that side, and out of his left eye at the nine brothers and
sisters on that side. He could do this very easily, because his eyes
were not on the front of his head like those of some people, but one on
each side.
"I have raised families of young Turtles every year," said the Mother
Turtle. "The first year I had only a few children, the next year I had
more, and so it has gone--every year a few more children than the year
before--until now I never know quite how many I do have. But there is
always one Slow Little Turtle who lags behind and wants the others to
wait for him. That makes him miss his share of good things, and then he
is quite certain to be cross and think it is somebody else's fault."
The Slow Little Turtle felt the ten brothers and sisters on his right
side looking at him out of their left eyes, and the nine brothers and
sisters on his left side looking at him out of their right eyes. He drew
in his head and his tail and his legs, until all they could see was his
rounded upper shell, his shell side-walls, and the yellow edge of his
flat lower shell. He would have liked to draw them in too, but of course
he couldn't do that.
"I did hope," said the Mother Turtle, "that I might have one family
without such a child in it. I cannot help loving even a slow child who
is cross, if he is hatched from one of my eggs, yet it makes me
sad--very, very sad."
"Try to get over this," she said to the Slow Little Turtle, "before it
is too late. And you," she added, turning to his brothers and sisters,
"must be patient with him. We shall not have him with us long."
"What do you mean?" asked the Slow Little Turtle, peeping out from
between his shells. "I'm not going away."
"You do not want to," said his mother, "but you will not be with us long
unless you learn to keep up with the rest. Something always happens to
pond people who are too slow. I cannot tell you what it will be, yet it
is sure to be _something_. I remember so well my first slow child--and
how he--" She began to cry, and since she could not easily get her
forefeet to her eyes, she sprawled to the pond and swam off with only
her head and a little of her upper shell showing above the water.
The Slow Little Turtle was really frightened by what his mother had
said, and for a few days he tried to keep up with the others. Nothing
happened to him, and so he grew careless and made people wait for him
just because he was not quite ready to go with them, or because he
wanted to do this or look at that or talk to some other person. He was a
very trying little Turtle, yet his mother loved him and did not like it
when the rest called him a Land Tortoise. It is all right, you know, to
be a Land Tortoise when your father and mother are Land Tortoises, and
these cousins of the Turtles look so much like them that some people
cannot tell them apart. That is because they forget that the Tortoises
live on land, have higher back shells, and move very, very slowly.
Turtles live more in the water and can move quickly if they will. This
is why other Turtles sometimes make fun of a slow brother by calling him
a Land Tortoise.
One beautiful sunshiny afternoon, when most of the twenty little Turtles
were sitting on a floating log by the edge of the pond, their mother was
with some of her friends on another log near by. She looked often at her
children, and thought how handsome their rounded-up back shells were in
the sunshine with the little red and yellow markings showing on the
black. She could see their strong little pointed tails too, and their
webbed feet with a stout claw on each toe. She was so proud that she
could not help talking about them. "Is there any sight more beautiful,"
she said, "than a row of good little Turtles?"
"Yes," said a fine old fellow who was floating near her, "a row of their
mothers!" He was a Turtle whom she had never liked very well, but now
she began to think that he was rather agreeable after all. She was just
noticing how beautifully the skin wrinkled on his neck, when she heard a
splash and saw two terrible great two-legged animals wading into the
pond from the shore.
"Boys!" she cried, "Boys!" And she sprawled off the end of her log and
slid into the water, all her friends following her. The Biggest Little
Turtle saw these great animals coming toward him. He sprawled off the
end of his log and slid into the water, and all his brothers and sisters
followed him except the Slow Little Turtle. "Wait for me," he said. "I'm
coming in just a----"
Then one of these great animals stooped over and picked him up, and held
him bottom side uppermost and rapped on that side, which was flat; and
on the other side, which was rounded; and stared at him with two great
eyes. Next the other great animal took him and turned him over and
rapped on his shells and stared at him. The poor Slow Little Turtle drew
in his head and tail and legs and kept very, very still. He wished that
he had side-pieces of shell all around now, instead of just one on each
side between his legs. He was thinking over and over, "Something has
happened! Something has happened!" And he knew that back in the pond
his mother would be trying to find him and could not.
The boys carried him to the edge of the meadow and put him down on the
grass. He lay perfectly still for a long, long time, and when he thought
they had forgotten about him he tried to run away. Then they laughed and
picked him up again, and one of them took something sharp and shiny and
cut marks into his upper shell. This did not really give him pain, yet,
as he said afterward, "It hurts almost as much to think you are going to
be hurt, as it does to be hurt."
It was not until the sun went down that the boys let the Slow Little
Turtle go. Then he was very, very tired, but he wanted so much to get
back to his home in the pond that he started at once by moonlight. This
was the first time he had ever seen the moon, for, except when they are
laying eggs, Turtles usually sleep at night. He was not quite sure
which way he should go, and if it had not been for the kindness of the
Tree Frog he might never have seen his brothers and sisters again. You
know the Tree Frog had been carried away when he was young, before he
came to live with the meadow people, so he knew how to be sorry for the
Slow Little Turtle.
The Tree Frog hopped along ahead to show the way, and the Turtle
followed until they reached a place from which they could see the pond.
"Good night!" said the Tree Frog. "You can find your way now."
"Good night!" said the Turtle. "I wish I might help you some time."
"Never mind me," said the Tree Frog. "Help somebody else and it will be
all right." He hopped back toward his home, and for a long time
afterward the Turtle heard his cheerful "Pukr-r-rup! Pukr-r-rup!"
sounding over the dewy grass and through the still air. At the edge of
the pond the Slow Little Turtle found his nineteen brothers and sisters
sound asleep. "I'm here!" he cried joyfully, poking first one and then
another of them with his head.
The Biggest Little Turtle moved without awakening. "I tell you I'm not
hungry," he murmured. "I don't want to get up." And again he fell fast
asleep.
So the Slow Little Turtle did not disturb him, but cuddled inside his
two shells and went to sleep also. He was so tired that he did not
awaken until the sun was high in the sky. When he did open his eyes, his
relatives were sitting around looking at him, and he remembered all that
had happened before he slept. "Does my shell look very bad?" he cried.
"I wish I could see it. Oh, I am so glad to get back! I'll never be slow
again, Never! Never!"
His mother came and leaned her shell lovingly against his. "If you will
only learn to keep up with your brothers and sisters," she said "I
shall not be sorry that the boys carried you off."
"You just wait and see," said the Slow Little Turtle. And he was as good
as his word. After that he was always the first to slip from the log to
the water if anything scared them; and when, one day, a strange Turtle
from another pond came to visit, he said to the Turtles who had always
lived there, "Why do you call that young fellow with the marked shell
'The Slow Little Turtle?' He is the quickest one in his family."
The pond people looked at each other and laughed. "That is queer!" they
said. "After this we will call him 'The Quick Little Turtle.'"
This made him very happy, and when, once in a while, somebody forgot and
by mistake called him "The Quick Slow Little Turtle," he said he rather
liked it because it showed that a Turtle needn't keep his faults if he
did have them.