"Mother Storm Turtle tumbled over backward and set the house afire with her torch, and Father Storm was so frightened by the big light that at first he couldn't help her put the fire out. And just then it began raining like forty, and all the children came running and screaming out of the woods, half scared to death by the big light and noise. It made a terrible commotion there for a few minutes, until they got the fire put out, and people heard it all over the country, even to Mr. Man's house. And when they found out what it was, and who started it, everybody called it a 'storm.' And rain and wind and thunder and lightning, or most any other kind of a big fuss, is called a 'storm' to this day, after Father and Mother Storm Turtle."
SLOP AND SPLASH AND PADDLE.
"And that," said Mr. Turtle, lighting his pipe once more, "was the first thunder and lightning, and whenever people saw it after that they said, 'We're going to have another storm!' For Father and Mother Storm Turtle went right on using the big torch and the shell of Old Man Turtle Himself to call in the children just before a rain, and the children would come running every time, all except Slop, Splash and Paddle, who got so at last that they liked the mud and dirty water better than anything else. They liked the mud so well that Father Storm told them one day they might go and live in the mud and be named Mud for all he cared; and so they did, and their names were Mud, and they and all their families live in dirty water and are called Mud Turtles to this day. They never went home again, but whenever they hear Father Storm pounding on the shell, they stop whatever they are doing and listen. And that's how the saying began that 'a Mud Turtle never lets go till it thunders.'"
"What makes the noise always get louder and the light brighter just before it rains?" asked Jack Rabbit.
"Why, you see," said Mr. Turtle, "Father and Mother Storm's grandchildren and great-grandchildren are a good deal scattered now, and as the old people run the thunder and lightning mostly on their account, they try to make it just about bright enough and loud enough to keep up with the rain wherever it goes."
"It's plenty loud enough," said Mr. 'Coon solemnly.
"And plenty bright enough," said Mr. Crow, blinking.
"What makes it set things on fire sometimes?" asked Mr. 'Possum sleepily.
"That's when Mother Storm Turtle swings her torch too hard and coals fly out of it," said Mr. Turtle, as he got up and walked over to the window.