“Not now!” the twins’ father answered with a laugh. “There, I’ll get you loose from him!”
Mr. Bobbsey gave a hard pull on Flossie’s bathing suit skirt. There was a sound of tearing cloth and then Mr. Bobbsey could lift his little girl high in his arms. As he did so Mrs. Bobbsey, who hurried up just then, saw on the beach behind Flossie a great, big turtle, and in its mouth, which looked something like that of a parrot, was a piece of the bathing skirt. Mr. Bobbsey had torn it loose.
“Oh, if he had bitten you instead of your dress!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey. “Flossie, are you hurt?”
“No, she isn’t hurt a bit,” her father said. “But of course it is a good thing that the turtle did not bite her. How did it happen, Flossie?”
“Well, I was resting here, after I tried to swim,” answered the little girl, for she was learning to swim; “and, all of a sudden, I wanted to get up, for Freddie called me to come and see how he could float. But I couldn’t get up. This mud turkle had hold of me.”
“It isn’t a mud turtle,” said Mr. Bobbsey. “But it certainly had hold of you.”
Just then Cousin Jasper came along and saw the turtle crawling back toward the water.
“Ha! I’ll stop that and we’ll have some turtle soup for dinner to-morrow!” he cried. “Not so fast, Mr. Turtle!”
With that Cousin Jasper turned the turtle over on its back, and there the big creature lay, moving its flippers, which it had instead of legs. They were broad and flat.
“Won’t it bite you?” asked Freddie, who, with Nan and Bert, had waded ashore.