102 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 



the shore, and, without a pause, scrambled out on 

 the sand. 



" She was nothing unusual for a turtle, but her 

 manner was unusual and the gait at which she 

 moved ; for there was method in it and fixed pur- 

 pose. On she came, shuffling over the sand toward 

 the higher open fields, with a hurried, determined 

 sfee-saw thut was- taking her somewhere in particular, 

 and that was bound to get her there on time. 

 ': ?] held my breath. Had she been a dinosaurian 

 making Mesozoic footprints, I could not have been 

 more fearful. For footprints in the Mesozoic mud, 

 or in the sands of time, were as nothing to me when 

 compared with fresh turtle eggs in the sands of this 

 pond. 



"But over the strip of sand, without a stop, she 

 paddled, and up a narrow cow-path into the high 

 grass along a fence. Then up the narrow cow-path, 

 on all fours, just like another turtle, I paddled, and 

 into the high wet grass along the fence. 



" I kept well within sound of her, for she moved 

 recklessly, leaving a wide trail of flattened grass be- 

 hind. I wanted to stand up, and I don't believe 

 I could have turned her back with a rail, but I 

 was afraid if she saw me that she might return in- 

 definitely to the pond ; so on I went, flat to the 

 ground, squeezing through the lower rails of the 

 fence, as if the field beyond were a melon-patch. It 

 was nothing of the kind, only a wild, uncomfortable 



