I thought that was very impolite and so I turned it over with my nose and barked again. But it wouldn’t come out. I barked at it a long time but it did no good, and then I lay down a little ways off and watched. Pretty soon the turtle thought I’d gone away and out came his head very, very slowly and he looked around with two little glittering yellow eyes. I think he was quite surprised to find himself on his back. He looked surprised, anyway, and he worked his paws and tried to turn himself over. Then he saw me, I guess, for he went back into his house very quickly again.
“You are a very stupid fellow,” I said, “whatever you are. Come on out and play.”
But he wouldn’t, and so pretty soon I went over to him and patted him with my paw. That didn’t bring him out, either. I made up my mind then that I’d take him home to Mother and ask her what he was. So I just picked him up in my mouth, house and all, and started along the brook with him. I had gone just a little ways when I felt a sharp pain in my lip, and I looked and that turtle had put his head out and was biting me! You may believe that I let go of him pretty quick! But he wouldn’t let go of me. He hung right on to my lip and swung there. I pawed at him and rubbed my head on the ground and howled, but it did no good. That turtle held on tight. By that time he was hurting a lot and I began to yelp and roll around and shake my head and do everything I could think of to get rid of him. And in the middle of it I slipped over the side of the bank and rolled down into the brook on my back!
After that I don’t remember just what did happen for a minute or two. I know that the turtle was still there and that I stuck my head into the mud and rolled over and over in the water and had an awful time and almost drowned myself before that horrid turtle finally let go of me. When I crawled out I was covered with mud and water and my lip was bleeding and I was shaking all over. I laid down for a while on the bank to get my breath and then I went back to the stable, hoping I could get behind the flower-pots before William saw me. But I didn’t. He was washing a carriage, and Father was helping him, when I got there, and he saw me before I could get by. My, but he was angry! He just took hold of me by the neck and held me with one hand and turned the hose on me with the other. Being washed with a hose is very unpleasant. The water gets in your eyes and mouth and ears. I had a very bad time of it. William scolded and scolded until he saw the place on my lip where the turtle had bitten me. Then he was sorry for me and dried me with a big chamois-skin and put some salve on the wound and it felt better. And I crawled behind the flower-pots and went to sleep.
Turtles and toads and ducks and bees are not good for dogs. They don’t play fair. It’s funny the lot of trouble I got into down by that brook. There was the time the duck “quacked” at me and I fell into the mud and the time the toad poisoned my mouth and the time the turtle bit me. You would think that I’d have learned to stay away from the brook, but I never did.
CHAPTER VI
[AT THE DOG SHOW]
We started out, William and Freya and I, very early one morning for the dog show. I think it was a Saturday. Anyhow, I remember that we had liver for breakfast the next day, and we usually had liver on Sundays. Freya and I were put in the dog crate and the crate was put in the little wagon and William drove. The Master, the Mistress and the Baby went in the carriage. Father and Mother were left at home. Father made quite a fuss about it and climbed into the wagon twice and had to be put out, but Mother just told us to be good children and not get into trouble and went back and laid down in the stable doorway.