THE CLEVER WATER-ADDER
None of the pond people were alone more than the Water-Adders. TheSnapping Turtle was left to himself a great deal until the day when heand Belostoma drove away the boys. After that his neighbors began tounderstand him better and he was less grumpy, so that those who woreshells were soon quite fond of him.
Belostoma did not have many friends among the smaller people, and only afew among the larger ones. They said that he was cruel, and that he hada bad habit of using his stout sucking tube to sting with. Still,Belostoma did not care; he said, "A Giant Water-Bug does not always livein the water. I shall have my wings soon, and leave the water andmarry. After that, I shall fly away on my wedding trip. Mrs. Belostomamay go with me, if she feels like doing so after laying her eggs here. Ishall go anyway. And I shall flutter and sprawl around the light, andsting people who bother me, and have a happy time." That was Belostoma'sway. He _would_ sting people who bothered him, but then he always saidthat they need not have bothered him. And perhaps that was so.
With the Water-Adders it was different. They were good-natured enough,yet the Mud Turtles and Snapping Turtle were the only ones who evercalled upon them and found them at home. The small people without shellswere afraid of them, and the Clams and Pond Snails never called upon anyone. The Minnows said they could not bear the looks of the Adders--theyhad such ugly mouths and such quick motions. The larger fishes keptaway on account of their children, who were small and tender.
One might think that the Sand-Hill Cranes, the Fish Hawks, and the othershore families would have been good friends for them, but when theycalled, the Adders were always away. People said that the Adders wereafraid of them.
The Yellow Brown Frog wished that the Adders could be scared, badlyscared, some time: so scared that a chilly feeling would run down theirbacks from their heads clear to the tips of their tails. "I wish," saidhe, "that the chilly feeling would be big enough to go way through totheir bellies. Their bellies are only the front side of their backs,anyway," he added, "because they are so thin." Of course this was adreadful wish to make, but people said that one of the Adders hadfrightened the Yellow Brown Frog so that he never got over it, and thiswas the reason he felt so.
The Water-Adders were certainly the cleverest people in the pond, andthere was one Mother Adder who was so very bright that they called her"the Clever Water-Adder." She could do almost anything, and she knew it.She talked about it, too, and that showed bad taste, and was one reasonwhy she was not liked better. She could swim very fast, could creep,glide, catch hold of things with her tail, hang herself from the branchof a tree, lift her head far into the air, leap, dart, bound, and dive.All her family could do these things, but she could do them a little thebest.
One day she was hanging over the pond in a very graceful position, withher tail twisted carelessly around a willow branch. The Snapping Turtleand a Mud Turtle Father were in the shallow water below her. Her slenderforked tongue was darting in and out of her open mouth. She was usingher tongue in this way most of the time. "It is useful in feeling ofthings," she said, "and then, I have always thought it quite becoming."She could see herself reflected in the still water below her, and shenoticed how prettily the dark brown of her back shaded into the white ofher belly. You see she was vain as well as clever.
The Snapping Turtle felt cross to-day, and had come to see if a talkwith her would not make him feel better. The Mud Turtle was tired ofhaving the children sprawl around him, and of Mrs. Mud Turtle tellingabout the trouble she had to get the right kind of food.
The Clever Water-Adder spoke first of the weather. "It must bedreadfully hot for the shore people," she said. "Think of their havingto wear the same feathers all the year and fly around in the sunshine tofind food for their children."
"Ah yes," said the Mud Turtle. "How they must wish for shells!"
"Humph!" said the Snapping Turtle. "What for? To fly with? Let them comein swimming with their children, if they are warm and tired."
The Water-Adder laughed in her snaky way, and showed her sharp teeth. "Ihave heard," she said, "that when the Wild Ducks bring their childrenhere to swim, they do not always take so many home as they brought."
The Snapping Turtle became very much interested in his warty rightforeleg, and did not seem to hear what she said. The Mud Turtle smiled."I have heard," she went on, "that when young Ducks dive head first,they are quite sure to come up again, but that when they dive feetfirst, they never come up."
"What do you mean?" asked the Snapping Turtle, and he was snappy aboutit.
"Oh, nothing," replied the Water-Adder, swinging her head back and forthand looking at the scales on her body.
"I know what you mean," said the Snapping Turtle, "and you know what youmean, but I have to eat something, and if I am swimming under the waterand a Duckling paddles along just above me and sticks his foot into mymouth, I am likely to swallow him before I think."
The Water-Adder saw that he was provoked by what she had said, so shetalked about something else. "I think the Ducks spoil their children,"said she. "They make such a fuss over them, and they are not nearly sobright as my children. Why, mine hatch as soon as the eggs are laid, andgo hunting at once. They are no trouble at all."
"I never worry about mine," said the Mud Turtle, "although their motherthinks it is not safe for them all to sleep at once, as they do on a login the sunshine."
"It isn't," said the Adder decidedly. "I never close my eyes. None ofus Adders do. Nobody can ever say that we close our eyes to danger."They couldn't shut their eyes if they wanted to, because they had noeyelids, but she did not speak of that. "How stupid people are," shesaid.
"Most of them," remarked the Turtles.
"All of them," she said, "except us Adders and the Turtles. I even thinkthat some of the Turtles are a little queer, don't you?"
"We have thought so," said the Mud Turtle.
"They certainly are," agreed the Snapping Turtle, who was beginning tofeel much better natured.
"What did you say?" asked the Adder who, like all her family, was alittle deaf.
"Ouch!" exclaimed the Snapping Turtle. "Ouch! Ouch!"
"What is the matter?" asked the Mud Turtle. Then he began to slap thewater with his short, stout tail, and say "Ouch!"
Two naughty young Water-Boatmen had swum quietly up on their backs, andstung the Turtles on their tails. Then they swam away, pushingthemselves quickly through the water with swift strokes of their hairyoar-legs.
"Ah-h-h!" exclaimed the Snapping Turtle, and he backed into the mud,knowing that fine, soft mud is the best thing in the world for stings.
"Ah-h-h!" exclaimed the Mud Turtle, "if I could only reach my tail withmy head, or even with one of my hind feet!"
"Reach your tail with your head?" asked the Water-Adder in her sweetestvoice. "Nothing is easier." And she wound herself around the willowbranch in another graceful position, and took the tip of her taildaintily between her teeth.
"Humph!" said the Snapping Turtle, and he pulled his tail out of themud and swam away.
"Ugh!" said the Mud Turtle, and he swam away with the Snapping Turtle.
"What a rude person she is!" they said. "Always trying to show how muchmore clever she is than other people. We would rather be stupid andpolite."
After a while the Snapping Turtle said, "But then, you know, we are notstupid."
"Of course not," replied the Mud Turtle, "not even queer."