The Worthington advance., 1899-11-10

by Sis EYershed, the mar who had led
them and whom they had trusted and
loved. Finally the turtles gave It up
in . despairing sort Of way and wad-
died OF toward the pond and their
daily task. But it was plain they were
doing some mighty hard thinking.
when they gotlto5the pond 81, being
out of humor at the strike Of the turtles,
just tied them on their foatsand tossed
the floats out in the lake in careless
way, as If he didn't care. whether his
faithful turtles drowned or not. The
floats turned up all right in the end.
but not before the turtles had got good
and wet. That added to the grievances
of the, turtles and helped turn them
from respectable, hard working duck
[catchers into vagrant swapping turtles,
ready to bite the hand which fed them.
"The ducks were getting cautious Of
those turtle floats, and it wasn't until
nearly night that each turtle had
caught a duck. The wait didn't i'm
prove Sis temper. When the floats
were full ST hauled them in shore.
Then. he grabbed duck and tried to
yank it away from the turtle which
was clinging toit. OF course, this only
made the turtle hold on the harder. !.
=" 'Peslzy little varmint,' says ST. I'll
teach you to hold on to my ducks So,
taking stick, ST began to whack the
turtle over the head.
"Patience isn't the main virtue of q
swapping turtle, even of trained one.
And these turtles had list of griev-
ances which they had been brooding
over all the time they had been on the
floats. First, they had been worked
overtime; then they had made the dis
covery that ST Evershed and not the
ducks was responsible for the beat
ings they had suffered; they had been
tossed out in the lake, as if no one cared
whether they were drowned or not;
and finally, after they had laid aside
malice and each caught duck, the
oldest and best turtle had been pounded
over the head with a stick. That set
tied the matter. Each turtle was de-
termined he would do. no more work
for ST Evershed. It may take trained
swapping turtle quite awhile to decide
what to do, but they are mighty quick
to act when their minds are made up.
Isl was pounding the long-suffering
turtle over the head when all of sud-
den the turtle let go of the duck. The
next second he had his jaws settled in
Sis big toe. ST forgot all about the
duck. For the next few seconds he
was busy dancing about, swearing and
trying to get his toe free from that
once faithful but now exasperated tur-
tie. Ordinarily swapping turtle hangs
on like death. But it was different with
this turtle. He didn't so much want to
have revenge. on ST as to emphasize:th
fact that he hadn't been fairly treated.
Pretty soon the turtle let go of Sis
toe. ST dropped on the ground in
heap, holding on to his injured toe and
cursing the ingratitude, as he called
it, of the turtle.
"But while that particular turtle had
been making things interesting for ST,
the others had been busy in way
which. showed they appreciated the
strike was on. Each turtle helped bite
off the cord by which another turtle
was tied to a float, Then, when the
turtle which had been pinching ST let
go, the other turtles waddled over and
set that turtle free. Each turtle could
then go where he pleased. And each
turtle made up his mind that his days
of duck catching for ST. Evershed were
over then and there. By the time ST had
a little recovered from the pain in his
toe the four turtles had reached the
edge of the lake. There they stopped
for a second, turned around, took a
last look at ST and then plunged in the
lake. And that was the last ever seen
of ST Evershed's duck catching snap.
ping turtles.
Them turtles never would have
struck if had treated them halfway
decent ST says to me mournfu1ly.
That last look they gave me was more
dumb reproach than anger.'"-N. Y.
Sun.