as glad to do that, for he really
wanted to show off a little, like Jack Rabbit, only he hadn't known
before how to do it. So he filled up his pipe nice and fresh, and lit
it, and began.

"'Well,' he said, 'of course you know my family all live to be pretty
old. I'm only three hundred and sixteen next spring myself, but Uncle
Tom Turtle, who lives up by the forks, is a good deal over nine hundred,
and he isn't nearly as old as Father Storm Turtle and his wife, who live
up in the Big West Hills, and make the thunder and lightning.'

"Mr. Turtle stopped a minute to light his pipe again, and all the others
just looked at him and couldn't say a word. They knew he was pretty old,
but they had never thought much about it before, and what he said about
Father and Mother Storm Turtle they had never even heard of. But Mr.
Turtle just lit his pipe, and puffed, and said:--

"'To tell the truth, I never did hear of any of our family dying of old
age, and I shouldn't wonder if Old Man Turtle Himself would still be
alive, too, if he hadn't tried to swallow a mussel fish with the shell
on and got it stuck in his throat a million and twenty-five years ago
last spring. Anyhow, that's according to the date cut on his shell
overcoat that Uncle Tom Turtle saw once at Father Storm's house up in
the Big West Hills.

"'I don't know how many great grandfathers back Father Storm is from me,
nor how many from Father Storm Old Man Turtle Himself was, but I know
Father Storm got his shell overcoat after the mussel fish wouldn't go
down, and that it was a great deal too big to take in the house, and it
used to set out in the yard on four bricks, for the children to play
under.

"'Father Storm Turtle had a big family then, and they were pretty
troublesome. They had a habit of wandering off in the woods and
forgetting to come back. Every night Mother Storm had to stand in the
door and call and call and not be able to sleep if they didn't come,
especially when it was cloudy and looked like rain. She knew that, if
they got wet they'd all come home with bad colds and sore throats and
make trouble and expense. Three of them--named Slop, Splash and
Paddle--were worse than any of the others, for even when it didn't rain
they were always playing in dirty puddles, and would come home all mud
and with wet feet.'"

MR. TURTLE'S THUNDER STORY

CONTINUED

FATHER STORM'S PLAN AND HOW IT WORKED

[Illustration]

"At last, one day, when Mother