II
AN OLD-TIMER
It was pleasant for Timothy Turtle that he lived in Black Creek, for he was very fond of fishing. If he had happened to make his home among the rocks on the top of Blue Mountain he would have had to travel a long way to find even a trout stream. But in Black Creek there were fish right in his dooryard, one may say.
It was lucky for him, too, that he liked fish to eat. And whenever he wanted a change of food the creek was a good place in which to find a frog, or perhaps a foolish duckling who had not learned to be careful.[p. 7]
It was no wonder that all the mother birds in the neighborhood used to warn their children to beware of Timothy Turtle. Did not Long Bill Wren, who lived among the reeds on the bank of Black Creek, have a narrow escape when he was only a few weeks old?
He had just learned to fly. And although his mother had told him not to leave the bank, he disobeyed her. When she was not watching him he sailed over the water for the first time in his life and alighted on a flat object on top of a rock.
Bill supposed it was a stone that he was sitting on. And he felt so proud of what he had done that he cried, "Look! Oh, look!"
His poor mother was dreadfully frightened when she saw him.