Once upon a time, the season of summer was coming to an end. One beautiful dawn, crisp and clear, a wise old turtle named Toby lifted up his head and looked all around him at the forest beneath the Hill of Good Fortune. It was lovely indeed, with the Crystal Lake gleaming like a silvery mirror, and the hilltops crowned with a bewitching misty light. But the sun was scorching overhead, and this it was that turned the little mist into smoke, drying up every green leaf.
The rabbits, tame and wild, were taking a drink from the lake. The birds were flying back and forth in the woods looking for a drop of dew or a nice fat worm. Toby noticed how uneasy, thirsty, and hungry all his little neighbors seemed, and he felt sorry for them; so he sunk his head down towards the blue water of the lake, and dipped his long nose in it. But just as he was about to drink, he thought of others besides himself. There was the little doe who had two fawns so young they were not able to find pasture for themselves, and surely she would be glad of a drop of water. Then, too, there were the badger-lad and his sister who had eaten nothing for many hours. So he locked his long legs about a branch of the willow, and let the good water flow from his nostrils into the flowerpots of the does and the badgers.
Then the little birds came flying, and Toby sprinkled a few drops here and there for them to drink. He was just thinking that he would himself take a swallow, when the whole forest was alarmed by a great noise.
“Down with the Turtle!” cried a furious and arrogant lion, which had come prowling into the forest with his long mane turned into a hornets’ nest. “Turtle, be so obliging as to get out of my way, or I will engage to blow you up with this pestiferous bee-hive.”
“Pray spare my venerable life,” sent Toby. “I kept the water from going all into my own stomach, to the end that my little neighbors might drink it. See how thankful they are; I pray you look at the throngs of thankful, whispering tongues that surround me.”
“Speak less and move away more,” roared the lion. “Away!”
Then Toby, who was a most sensible and amiable turtle, begged the passing menagerie to notice the gratitude of the critters; for all the otters and lizards that shot through the water, the frogs and newts that climbed up its banks, the turtles and muskrats that had their snouts out of the water, sent up a faint cry, as it were a song of thanks to the benevolent reptile.
“Accept my final word, turtle that you are, and vanish!” cried the lion in a voice of thunder.
“Your terrible majesty, while I thank you, I send you a drop of rain means to say the cloudy sky will soon pour down for the restoration of our health.”
But the lion would not believe it.
“Silence and obey!” he reiterated.
The elephant, who had a cramp in his tummy, not having eaten for thirty-six hours, because he would not allow the drops of water that came from Toby’s nostrils, now with a trunk of enormous length took care to receive all that Jay could pour.
When the menagerie was replete, by the dizziness dawning in the lion’s head, and one of his poor paws going off with gangrene, all the animals went towards Crystal Lake.
“Oh!” cried Toby, sipping the water with great difficulty. “I felt sure we should have rain.”
It was actually raining very hard. The lion raised his paw, covered with humors as black as a thundercloud, to wipe his eyes, so brimful of water that he looked in this attitude like a man who was drowning.
“The gracious rain has cured me,” he said, shaking his head like a hunter after he has shot a dove. “All hail, you good old turtle! You have liquor for the bruises I will inflict upon you.” And he slipped away.
Toby, trembling but full of pious thoughts, drowsily lay against a clump of rushes, listening to the grateful song of all living beings around him; and as he closed his eyes, a second rain poured down to King Pin’s top-knot. But soon he awoke again. Thunder growled mournfully over the Lake of Crystal. Lightning dashed through the trees. The badger and the doe passed close to him, trembling. Half-asleep and half-awake, he lay in the small Temple of Diana, with his feet in the water, contemplating the beautiful apparition of the golden frame towering above him, when, behold! a cat protruded from the rushes.
His eyes were fixed straight on Toby’s head, in which there was a piece of meat stuck fast between the carapace and the flesh.
Horrid! horrid! the fat of the meat had dropped into the water. All the worms came and slipped their way under Toby’s nose to enjoy it.
“Keep quiet, turtle, keep quiet!” said the lizards and the frogs, who were gradually carrying away whole slices. “What is fortune taking you the trouble for? If the cat-gourmand comes across you, she will rip you open to filter drops out of you. Your mutilated remains will soon be floating in the Lake of Crystal. Beside our generous supper, what need is there for your flesh during the repose of the night?”
The tortoise ventured to poke his head out of his agelong home.
“Wouldn’t you like me to give you a bit? Oh, no! It would not be fair towards the others. Ah, what exquisite meat this is!”
And as the lizards were disputing as to who should take the front rank for their meals, in came a crab, “as large as a cow,” after your South-American kitchen.
“And you call this a fowl?” said it. “It is heartless to rob the turtle.”
The cat now walked in. She licked her implemental claws delicately, rooted up the long nails of her paw with her teeth, turned her sharp ears toward Toby, and said to him, gravely, subtly, highly-perfectly:
“Tsk! tsk! tsk! What are you doing, my little dear, in the middle of that fetid swamp? You will spoil your meat that way unawares.”
Then suddenly narrowing her pupils, “Why, what is that in your shell? Will you not allow me to pick it out for you? Come, give me no denial. What is there in a little intimacy? It is not amiable to remain all alone with our aged tortoise. And, besides, Turtle, you know, my dear, that diamonds were not made for humble folks like us.”
The turtle crouched down confusedly, one of his legs having germinated before the other, owing to bad luck on the part of the parents-to-be.
“Take care, child!” replied she, leering, caressing him all over. “When they grow out again, your eye will be put out, regardless of form, nature guarantees it, and that is not to be comforted.”
The cat, struck with an agreeable malady, went off tsking and feebly.
Then Toby, who was now quite alone, turned towards the doe, who had fallen just before him under the influence of savage fatigue.
“Sleep, peace-loving neighbor. It is not good to wake you.”
Then he was silent, half-weeping in the grass, at having seen prudent counsel rejected, formerly friendly neighbors, now carnivorous and booked on his account. But sleepiness nevertheless came round to comfort him, and softly died away in the voiceless slaughterhouse, where too many meat mongers were dissecting a good-natured corpse.