And then Mr. Dog held a candle, and they all looked, one after another, and there, sure enough, carved right in Mr. Turtle's shell, were the words:—
BEAT MR. HARE
FOOT RACE
JUNE 10, 1649
"That," said Mr. Turtle, "was my greatest joke, and I had it carved on my shell."
And all the rest of the forest people said that a thing like that was worth carving on anybody's shell that had one, and when Mr. Turtle put on his coat they gave him the best seat by the fire, and sat and looked at him and asked questions about it, and finally all went to sleep in their chairs, while the fire burned low and the soft snow was banking up deeper and deeper, outside, in the dark.
Transcriber's Note:
Duplicate chapter titles were removed.
Illustrations were moved from their original location. They are now located more closely to the text that forms the caption.