"There didn't seem to be any sense in hanging around after that, for when Mr. Crow makes up his mind not to talk Mr. Man himself couldn't drag a word out of him, and off I went hipperty-hop as if it weren't in my head to go anywhere in particular; but I was headed for the pond, because I'd made up my mind to know what was to be done, and that before it happened, even if I had to hang around all night. It was well that I felt so determined, else I'd have missed the biggest part of the fun, and don't you think that we didn't have lots of it before dark!
"It didn't take me many minutes to go to the pond, for I skipped along at my best speed after I was so far away that Mr. Crow couldn't see me, and there I found old Slowly lying out on the sand as if he were in the last stages of consumption.
"'What's the matter, Mr. Turtle?' I asked, for even though I don't like the old fellow any too well it pays to be polite, and really, just for a minute, I was afraid he'd make up his mind to die.
"'I've got a terrible toothache, Mr. Rabbit!' he said, stretching his neck out of the shell till it looked like a snake, and when he'd got as far as that I couldn't help laughing right in his face, for anybody who ever heard Mr. Turtle knows that he hasn't got a tooth in his jaws and never had.
"'I'm in a bad way, Mr. Rabbit,' he went on, making as if he didn't see me laughing, 'and I don't know what'll happen if I can't get better mighty soon.'
"'Is there anything I can do to help you?' I asked, though I knew there wasn't, for how can you cure the toothache for a fellow who never had any teeth?
"'I don't reckon you can, Mr. Rabbit; there's only one person in all the big woods who could do me the least little mite of good,' he said with a groan that sounded as if a spring inside of him had broken and was whirling around to beat the band.
"'Who is it you want?' I asked, never so much as dreaming what kind of an answer he'd make, and he sobbed out as if he had already begun to die:
"'Jimmy Hedgehog is the only fellow who could do me any good; but I'm afraid I'll draw my last breath before he comes around this way.'
"You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said that, for I knew it was some part of the plan Mr. Crow had hatched up, but I was more in the dark than ever and so would you have been. Of course I didn't let on that I knew the president of the club had been down that way and asked as innocent as any lamb: