I went sailing
over that fence, and I didn't mean to carry off Mr. Hare's tail. Dear
me, how time passes! I'm three hundred and twenty-five now, though I
don't feel it."

Then they all looked at Mr. Turtle again, for though they believed he
was old, and might possibly have been there, they thought it pretty
strange that he could be the very Mr. Tortoise who had won the race.

Mr. 'Possum said, pretty soon, that when anybody said a thing like that,
there ought to be some way to prove it.

Then Mr. Turtle got up and began taking off his coat, and all the others
began to get out of the way, for they didn't know what was going to
happen to Mr. 'Possum, and they wanted to be safe; and Mr. 'Possum
rolled under the table, and said that he didn't mean anything--that he
loved Mr. Turtle, and that Mr. Turtle hadn't understood the way he meant
it at all.

But Mr. Turtle wasn't the least bit mad. He just laid off his coat,
quietly, and unbuttoned his shirt collar, and told Mr. 'Coon and Mr.
Crow to look on the back of his shell.

And then Mr. Dog held a candle, and they all looked, one after another,
and there, sure enough, carved right in Mr. Turtle's shell, were the
words:--

BEAT MR. HARE
FOOT RACE
JUNE 10, 1649

"That," said Mr. Turtle, "was my greatest joke, and I had it carved on
my shell."

And all the rest of the forest people said that a thing like that was
worth carving on anybody's shell that had one, and when Mr. Turtle put
on his coat they gave him the best seat by the fire, and sat and looked
at him and asked questions about it, and finally all went to sleep in
their chairs, while the fire burned low and the soft snow was banking up
deeper and deeper, outside, in the dark.

[Illustration]

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

Illustrations were moved from their original location. They are now
located more closely to the text that forms the caption.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Tail, by
Albert Bigelow Paine

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