TURTLE EGGS FOR AGASSIZ 101 



rise and vanish every morning, and along with them 

 vanish, more and more, the poetry of my early morn- 

 ing vigil. Poetry and rheumatism cannot long dwell 

 together in the same clump of cedars, and I had 

 begun to feel the rheumatism. A month of morning 

 mists wrapping me around had at last soaked through 

 to my bones. But Agassiz was waiting, and the 

 world was waiting, for those turtl^iegjg^ an<f*J 

 would wait. It was all I could ,do, .for tljerje is, no, 

 use bringing a china nest-egg td*a Jtu*rle$&lm'i"ii)V 

 open to any such delicate suggestion. 



" Then came a mid-June Sunday morning, with 

 dawn breaking a little after three : a warm, wide- 



O ' 



awake dawn, with the level mist lifted from the level 

 surface of the pond a full hour higher than I had 

 seen it any morning before. 



" This was the day. I knew it. I have heard per- 

 sons say that they can hear the grass grow ; that 

 they know by some extra sense when danger is nigh. 

 For a month I had been watching, had been brood- 

 ing over this pond, and now I knew. I felt a stirring 

 of the pulse of things that the cold-hearted turtles 

 could no more escape than could the clods and I. 



" Leaving my horse unhitched, as if he, too, un- 

 derstood, I slipped eagerly into my covert for a look 

 at the pond. As I did so, a large pickerel ploughed 

 a furrow out through the spatter-docks, and in his 

 wake rose the head of a large painted turtle. Swing- 

 ing slowly round, the creature headed straight for 



