"In the summer time I make a rhyme
For every breeze that passes,
For I can always make it chime
With lassies, grasses, sasses."
"Mr. 'Possum said he couldn't do that if it was to save him from being hung the next minute, and Mr. Rabbit went right on without catching his breath:—
"Where e'er I go my verses flow—
I keep it up for hours.
I'm never short of rhymes, you know,
With bowers, flowers, showers."
"Well, that set them all to wondering how Jack Rabbit could do it so easily, and Mr. Rabbit didn't think to tell them how he'd sat up all the night before to compose this poetry, so's to have it on hand and ready for a chance to use it. He said that it was somebody else's turn now, and that maybe Mr. Turtle would give them a performance of some kind. Mr. Turtle wanted to change the subject, and got up and walked over to the window. He said that, speaking of showers, it was so warm and close, he shouldn't wonder if they had one before morning. He said he believed there was lightning now, off in the west, and seemed like he could hear it thunder, too. Then they all talked about thunder and lightning and what they were. But nobody seemed to know except Mr. Turtle himself.
"'Why,' he said, 'I thought everybody knew that!' Then he went on to say that he'd known the story ever since he wasn't 'any bigger than a pants button,' and all the others said he must tell it to them, because it was his turn, anyway. And Mr. Turtle was glad to do that, for he really wanted to show off a little, like Jack Rabbit, only he hadn't known before how to do it. So he filled up his pipe nice and fresh, and lit it, and began.
"'Well,' he said, 'of course you know my family all live to be pretty old. I'm only three hundred and sixteen next spring myself, but Uncle Tom Turtle, who lives up by the forks, is a good deal over nine hundred, and he isn't nearly as old as Father Storm Turtle and his wife, who live up in the Big West Hills, and make the thunder and lightning.'
"Mr. Turtle stopped a minute to light his pipe again, and all the others just looked at him and couldn't say a word. They knew he was pretty old, but they had never thought much about it before, and what he said about Father and Mother Storm Turtle they had never even heard of. But Mr. Turtle just lit his pipe, and puffed, and said:—
"'To tell the truth, I never did hear of any of our family dying of old age, and I shouldn't wonder if Old Man Turtle Himself would still be alive, too, if he hadn't tried to swallow a mussel fish with the shell on and got it stuck in his throat a million and twenty-five years ago last spring. Anyhow, that's according to the date cut on his shell overcoat that Uncle Tom Turtle saw once at Father Storm's house up in the Big West Hills.
"'I don't know how many great grandfathers back Father Storm is from me, nor how many from Father Storm Old Man Turtle Himself was, but I know Father Storm got his shell overcoat after the mussel fish wouldn't go down, and that it was a great deal too big to take in the house, and it used to set out in the yard on four bricks, for the children to play under.
"'Father Storm Turtle had a big family then, and they were pretty troublesome. They had a habit of wandering off in the woods and forgetting to come back. Every night Mother Storm had to stand in the door and call and call and not be able to sleep if they didn't come, especially when it was cloudy and looked like rain. She knew that, if they got wet they'd all come home with bad colds and sore throats and make trouble and expense. Three of them—named Slop, Splash and Paddle—were worse than any of the others, for even when it didn't rain they were always playing in dirty puddles, and would come home all mud and with wet feet.'"