t his seeing me, for if he'd caught a glimpse of the littlest
kind of grin on my face he'd have suspected that something was up,
when it would have been good-bye to Mr. Crow's plans.

"As luck would have it he never tumbled to a thing and when we got to
the pond there was old Mr. Turtle lying out in the sun as if his very
last day had come. He acted so sick that even though I knew he'd never
had a tooth in his head I almost began to believe he really did have
the toothache.

"'What's the matter, Mr. Turtle?' Jimmy asked, ruffling up his quills
so's to make himself look as big as he felt, and old Slowly said,
speaking as if the breath had about gone out of his body:

"'I'm in a mighty bad way, Mr. Hedgehog, and I allow you're the only
one in all the big woods who can give me a lift. I've never done
anything wrong to you, and a young chap ought to be willing to help a
poor old fellow who's got the misery in his tooth that I'm having.'

"'Of course, I'll do what I can, Mr. Turtle,' and Jimmy bristled
around like a red and green auto that's gone wrong in its
steering-gear. 'Suppose you show me the tooth and perhaps I can pull
the thing out for you.'

"I thought for sure Jimmy had the old fellow then and that Mr. Crow's
plan had failed, but old Slowly Turtle isn't half as foolish as he
looks for he never turned a hair when he said:

"'It's no use for me to try to show it, Mr. Hedgehog, because I've had
the pain so long that I've regularly got the lock-jaw. If you'd be
willing to let me have one of your stoutest quills I'm most certain I
could fix the thing up myself. You see, I've got the thick part of a
snail's shell in my tooth and the minute that is out I'll be all
right.'

"'You're welcome to a dozen quills, if that's what you want; but
you'll have to get Bunny to pull 'em out, for I can't do it,' and
Jimmy looked around at me as if expecting I was going to thrust my
paws among all those sharp-pointed toothpicks.

"'I don't believe I'd care to trust Bunny in such a job as that,' Mr.
Turtle said, looking out of the corner of his eye at me as if to say
that I was to keep my paws out of his pies, which I was perfectly
willing to do. 'If you'd turn around, Mr. Hedgehog, so's I could see
just which quill I wanted it wouldn't take me long to get what I
needed.'

"Jimmy still believed that he must be the biggest kind of fellow among
the wood folks if he was the only one who could save Mr. Turtle's
life, and around h