a good start."

Mr. Turtle went on to say that in this case it was Mr. Eagle and one of
the ancient ancestors of the little water-snake he had just carried off
that had started the experiment, though he thought none of it had been
really planned.

"I was very small then," Mr. Turtle went on, "about the size of Mr.
Man's fist, though I suppose much heavier, for my shell was very thick
for my age, and everybody said that if I lived a thousand years or so I
might have a shell as big and thick as the one that Father Storm Turtle,
up at the Forks, uses to make the thunder with.[1] Then they would laugh
and say that Old Man Moccasin, up at the Drifts, would certainly have
trouble with his digestion if he ever caught me; which used to scare my
mother, for Old Man Moccasin was the biggest water-snake that anybody
ever saw, and there was nobody around the Wide Blue Water that didn't
give him room, especially fish-fry, and Mr. Frog, and young turtles like
me, and even some older ones. My mother used to warn us children all the
time, and scold us every day about going away so far from the house and
not keeping a good watch-out for Old Man Moccasin, who would surely get
us, she said, unless we were more careful. Then she would tell us to
look out for Mr. Eagle, too, who was likely any time to come soaring
about, and would pick up any food he saw lying handy.

"Well, it used to scare us when we thought about it. Old Man Moccasin
was seven feet long, and I judge about a half a foot thick. He could
lift himself two feet out of the water when he was swimming, and with
his far-sighted glasses on could see a mile. Mr. Eagle was fully twice
as big as any of the Eagle family I know of nowadays, and didn't need
any glasses to see an article the size of a bug floating on the Wide
Blue Water, no matter how high he was flying. We tried to keep a lookout
in several directions, but, of course, as we got older without
accidents, we grew careless, and our mother used to count us every night
and be surprised that we were all there, and give us a good scolding to
go to bed on.

"Nothing happened to any of us for a good while, and then it happened to
me. I was the biggest and strongest of our lot, and had the thickest
shell, and I liked to show how grown-up I was, and would swim out
farther, and make believe I wasn't afraid any more of Mr. Eagle and Old
Man Moccasin, which wasn't true, of course, for Mr. Eagle could have
handled me with one claw