The Tale of Timothy Turtle

by Arthur Scott Bailey

"Why don't you learn?" Mr. Crow suggested wickedly.

"I'm too old," Timothy sighed.

"Not at all!" Mr. Crow hastened to assure him. "One can never be too old to try a thing."

But Timothy Turtle replied that even if he was young enough to attempt such a feat as flying, he hadn't the least idea of the way to go about it.

Old Mr. Crow was most helpful.

"I'll tell you what you ought to do," he advised. "You swim down the creek as far as the big bluff. And it will be a simple matter for you to climb up to the top of the bluff and jump off the rock that hangs high up over the water."[p. 28]

Timothy Turtle looked far from happy at that suggestion.

"I shouldn't care to do that," he said.

"Why not?" Mr. Crow asked him. "You know there's only one way of flying, and that's through the air."

"I might fall," Timothy objected.