s well that I felt so determined, else I'd have missed the biggest
part of the fun, and don't you think that we didn't have lots of it
before dark!

"It didn't take me many minutes to go to the pond, for I skipped along
at my best speed after I was so far away that Mr. Crow couldn't see
me, and there I found old Slowly lying out on the sand as if he were
in the last stages of consumption.

"'What's the matter, Mr. Turtle?' I asked, for even though I don't
like the old fellow any too well it pays to be polite, and really,
just for a minute, I was afraid he'd make up his mind to die.

"'I've got a terrible toothache, Mr. Rabbit!' he said, stretching his
neck out of the shell till it looked like a snake, and when he'd got
as far as that I couldn't help laughing right in his face, for anybody
who ever heard Mr. Turtle knows that he hasn't got a tooth in his jaws
and never had.

"'I'm in a bad way, Mr. Rabbit,' he went on, making as if he didn't
see me laughing, 'and I don't know what'll happen if I can't get
better mighty soon.'

"'Is there anything I can do to help you?' I asked, though I knew
there wasn't, for how can you cure the toothache for a fellow who
never had any teeth?

"'I don't reckon you can, Mr. Rabbit; there's only one person in all
the big woods who could do me the least little mite of good,' he said
with a groan that sounded as if a spring inside of him had broken and
was whirling around to beat the band.

"'Who is it you want?' I asked, never so much as dreaming what kind of
an answer he'd make, and he sobbed out as if he had already begun to
die:

"'Jimmy Hedgehog is the only fellow who could do me any good; but I'm
afraid I'll draw my last breath before he comes around this way.'

"You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said that, for
I knew it was some part of the plan Mr. Crow had hatched up, but I was
more in the dark than ever and so would you have been. Of course I
didn't let on that I knew the president of the club had been down that
way and asked as innocent as any lamb:

"'How is it possible that Jimmy can help you, Mr. Turtle?'

"'I was eating a snail and must have got a piece of his shell in my
teeth; if Jimmy would let me have one of his quills for a toothpick I
might get it out.'

"Now what do you think of that? Talking about toothpicks when he
didn't have even the shadow of a tooth to use them on! Well, I'm not
the kind of rabbit to miss any fun and knowing Mr