Archie P. McKishnie

Swamp-Coon and Old Man Turtle

O LD MAN TURTLE was warming himself on a log, his yellow-rimmed eyes blinking sleepily in the sun, when Mr. Swamp-Coon came strutting along in his beautiful barred coat and chanced to spy him there.

"Hello, old Moss-Back," he growled, for he was a surly, overbearing fellow and not a bit friendly.

Old Man Turtle stretched his neck and legs and eyed Mr. Swamp-Coon drowsily.

"You seem to be in a hurry, Swampy," he replied. "Are you frightened of anything?"

"Frightened?" snarled Mr. Swamp-Coon. "Do you think I could be frightened of anything? Am I not the bravest and the fiercest fighter in all Marsh Realm?"

"You're said to be," yawned Old Man Turtle, "but that doesn't prove it a fact."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Mr. Swamp-Coon threateningly, showing his long teeth.

Mr. Swamp-Coon and Old Man Turtle

"I mean just what I say," returned Old Man Turtle calmly. "I don't believe you possess one-half as much courage as you think you possess. You may be the fiercest fighter in Marsh Realm, but you're scared to go into the woods, and you know it."

"Why, I've just come from the woods," Mr. Swamp-Coon cried indignantly.

"Perhaps that's why you're in such a hurry," chuckled Old Man Turtle. "You're not much of a fighter on dry land. You prefer to fight where there's water so's you can drown your enemy. Why—"

He twisted slowly about on the log the better to watch Mr. Swamp-Coon's confusion, "do you know what old Amberorbs told me only this morning?" he asked.

"No, what did that good-for-nothing owl tell you?"

"He said that the other day little Billy Porcupine bluffed you clean off the oak-ridge into the water."

"That's not true!" cried Mr. Swamp-Coon furiously. "I was only trying to lure him into the water. No porcupine can bluff me, I tell you."

"Why didn't you throw him into the water then? You're twice as big as he is."

"Because," explained Mr. Swamp-Coon, his voice shaking with anger, "he rolled himself up into a ball, that's why."

"Well, a ball's made to throw, isn't that so?" Old Man Turtle chuckled so hard at his own joke that the log beneath him quivered.

"But I would have gotten my paws full of his sharp quills," grumbled Mr. Swamp-Coon, "and they would have caused festering sores."

"Oh dear," sighed Old Man Turtle, "it does seem too bad that the biggest and strongest animal in this marsh is afraid of a lazy, sleepy porcupine. If it wasn't such a grand sunny day for sleeping, I would be almost tempted to go up into the woods and show you how to handle a porcupine."

"Humph!" snorted Mr. Swamp-Coon, "nothing can hurt you. All you have to do is to draw your head, legs and tail under your shell and you're safe."

"No," sighed Old Man Turtle, paying no attention to the other's satire, "things are not what they were sixty or eighty years ago. When I was a young fellow, now—"

Mr. Swamp-Coon sat down on a tuft of grass and stared at him.

"You don't mean to tell me you're eighty years old, do you, Moss-Back?" he asked unbelievingly.

"I shall be one hundred and twenty this coming June," Old Man Turtle said. "I'm the youngest in our family."

"And how many are there in your family, for land's sake?" Mr. Swamp-Coon asked breathlessly.

"The last time we counted them there were six hundred and forty."

"My goodness!" murmured the astounded Swampy.

"Counting grand-children, great-grand-children and great-great-grand-children," resumed Old Man Turtle, "I think we must number up into the thousands."

"And what has become of all your relatives?" asked Mr. Swamp-Coon.

"Ah," sighed Old Man Turtle, "that's what has been bothering me for more than fifty years, Swampy. Where are they all? I wish I knew. I've stayed in this one spot for years hoping some of them would happen along."

"And none of them have?"

"Why no. How could  they?"

"What do you mean?" asked the perplexed Swampy. "Why couldn't  they?"

"If you had any sense, you would know without asking," said Old Man Turtle. "It's because they've all been stopping in one place too."

"Were you born here?" asked Mr. Swamp-Coon curiously.

"You mean was I hatched  here," corrected Old Man Turtle. "No, I was not. I was hatched seven years from here."

"You mean seven miles from here, don't you?"

"No, I don't. I mean what I say; seven years."

Mr. Swamp-Coon scratched his head perplexedly.

"I guess you're joking with me," he said angrily.

Old Man Turtle, who was just dropping into a doze, poked up his head at this.

"I seldom joke," he said seriously. "Do you see that big smudge, like smoke, against the sky, away off beyond the forest?"

Mr. Swamp-Coon followed his gaze. "Yes, I see it," he answered. "That's where the big city is, I understand."

"Correct. Well, I was born there, but there was no city there at that time. Indeed not. It was all swamp and rushes, exactly like it is here. I was seven years getting from my birthplace to this spot."

"Seven years!" echoed Swamp-Coon wonderingly. "Why, I could have made that distance in a few hours."

"No doubt," nodded Old Man Turtle, "but think of the fun you would have missed in hurrying so."

"Fun? What fun?"

"Why, reading riddles, of course, you stupid."

"Riddles? What are riddles?"

"Don't you know," said Old Man Turtle, "that every inch of the earth and water holds a riddle, and that the more riddles you are able to read, the wiser you become?"

"No, I never knew that," admitted Mr. Swamp-Coon. "And what's more, I don't believe it."

"No? Well, I'll prove it to you. There's a riddle right before your eyes now. What makes the water wet?"

Mr. Swamp-Coon frowned and thought hard. "I can't answer that," he admitted at length.

"That shows you are  stupid," chuckled Old Man Turtle. "If it wasn't wet  it wouldn't be water, would it?"

"Why, of course not," stammered Mr. Swamp-Coon. "Come to think of it, it wouldn't."

"Well, the time to 'come to think of it'  is before you answer, not after," snorted Old Man Turtle. "Now please go away and let me finish my nap."