RUDGE

Sometimes Fatty Coon liked a taste of fresh fish, just by way of a
change from Farmer Green's corn, and blackberries, wild grapes,
bugs--and all the other dainties on which he dined.

So it happened that one day he visited Black Creek, where he crouched
near the water with the hope that some silly fish would swim within
reach of his sharp claws.

For a long time he waited patiently. And at last, to his great joy, a
young pickerel nosed his way through the shallow water in front of him.

The newcomer was hunting flies. And he did not notice the eager
fisherman.

Fatty Coon waited until just the right moment. And then one of his paws
darted suddenly into the water.

But instead of Fatty Coon catching the pickerel, someone else caught
Fatty Coon.

His captor was no less a person than Timothy Turtle himself, who had
been buried all this time in the mud almost under Fatty Coon's nose.
That is, his body was buried. His head and neck he had left free, so
that he might strike at a fish when one came his way. But he had seen
something else that took his fancy. When Fatty's paw scooped into the
water Timothy Turtle just _had_ to grab it.

"Let me go!" Fatty Coon shrieked, for Mr. Turtle's cruel jaws hurt him
terribly.

"Why, this is fun!" Timothy Turtle muttered thickly, as he took a firmer
hold on Fatty's paw. "Besides, I've been wanting to talk with you for a
long time."

"Then you'd better let me go," Fatty groaned, "because you can't talk
well with your mouth full."

"I can say all I need to," Timothy Turtle grunted. "And I know that if I
dropped your paw you'd run off."

"Hurry, then!" Fatty Coon begged him piteously. "Hurry and tell me what
you have to say. And please talk fast!"

Timothy Turtle almost smiled.

"Am I hurting you?" he inquired.

"Yes, you are!" cried Fatty Coon.

"Good!" Mr. Turtle snorted. "I meant to, because I've a grudge against
you."

Fatty Coon couldn't think what he meant.

"I've never done a thing to you," he declared.

"Perhaps not!" Timothy Turtle admitted.

"But you stole Mrs. Turtle's eggs--twenty-seven of them--and you can't
deny it."

Now, it was true--what Timothy Turtle said. Hidden among the reeds one
day, Fatty Coon had watched Mrs. Turtle bury her eggs in the sand, to
hatch. And when she had gone he had crept out from his hiding-place, dug
up her precious, round, white treasures, and eaten them, every one.

Well, Fatty Coon dropped his head in front