ing ways got the better of him. He simply had to say
something.

"What on earth are you doing!" he called to Timothy.

Mr. Turtle gave a great start.

"I'm looking at myself--that's all," he said. He was so surprised that
for once he actually answered a question politely.

His reply amused Peter Mink. And that ill-bred rascal laughed right in
Timothy Turtle's face.

"Time must hang heavy on your hands, if you can't find anything
pleasanter to do than that," he remarked--for Peter Mink never cared how
rude he was. In fact he liked to make unkind remarks. "Aren't you
afraid," he added, "that you'll wear out the surface of the creek,
gazing into it? I shouldn't like that very well," said Peter Mink,
"because then it couldn't freeze in winter, and you know it's great
sport to hunt muskrats under the ice."

Well, Peter's speech alarmed Timothy Turtle. And yet he felt that he
could not rest until he knew what was on his back. So he asked Peter
Mink to meet him on the bank.

"I want you to help me," he said. "I have reason to believe that there's
something written on my back. And you must tell me what it is."

XVIII

PETER MINK'S PLAN

Now Peter Mink had never learned to read. In the first place, he had
never had a chance to learn. And in the second, he was such a
good-for-nothing rascal that he wouldn't have gone to school anyhow.

But he did not tell all this to Timothy Turtle. When he stepped behind
Timothy and gazed at his back, Peter Mink thought of a fine way to tease
the old fellow.

Of course, he had not the slightest idea what those marks on Mr.
Turtle's shell meant. But he looked down at them with a wise smile.

Mr. Turtle, watching Peter out of the corner of his eye, saw that smile;
and he did not like it in the least. In fact, it made him feel quite
peevish.

"Well, what do you see?" he asked Peter Mink impatiently.

"Ah!" Peter Mink replied with a shake of his small head. "I'm not going
to tell you, Mr. Turtle. I don't want to hurt your feelings. And if I
were to explain that your back says you're a disagreeable, mean old
scamp, you know you'd be very angry."

Peter Mink jumped out of the way just in time. For Timothy Turtle
wheeled with amazing swiftness and snapped at his tormentor.

"Don't do that!" Peter cried. "_I_ didn't say anything about you, Mr.
Turtle."

"You'd better not," Timothy warned him. "And if Johnnie Green carved
any such words as those on my shell I don't know wh