“Ha, ha, Terrapin, you are great at a trade; but you will not make another with me in a hurry till our first one is squared.”
After she had gone a little way she turned suddenly round and came back to the foot of Terrapin’s tree, and cried,
“Tu-no-no-no. Ano-no-no-no. We-no-no-no!”
“Ah, that is my child’s voice,” said Ma Terrapin to herself, and let down the cord.
Miss Crane caught hold and climbed up towards the nest. Ma Terrapin craned her neck out far to welcome her child, but before she could discover by what means little Terrapin had changed its dress, Miss Crane struck Ma Terrapin with her long sharp bill in the place where the neck joins the shoulder, and in a short time Ma Terrapin was as dead as Miss Crane’s own mother.
The body was rolled from the nest, and it went falling down, and Miss Crane slid quickly after it.
In a quiet place screened by thick bushes Miss Crane made a great fire, with which Ma Terrapin’s thick shell was cracked. She then scooped out the flesh, and carried it to her own home, and stowed it in a big black pot.
On the next day as Miss Crane was standing on one leg by the pond, with her head half buried in her feathers, who should come along but Terrapin, crying bitterly, and saying, “Ah, my ma is dead. My old ma has been killed. Who will assist me now?”
Miss Crane affected to be asleep, but heard every word. When, however, Terrapin was near, she woke up suddenly and said, cheerfully,
“Ah! it is Terrapin, my little brother Terrapin. How do you do to-day?”