CHAPTER V THE TURTLE

 A week before we were to go to Oak Cliff William began to groom¹ us every morning and evening. We were rubbed all over with a cloth that was wet with something that smelled good and left our coats smooth and glossy². We were brushed, too, and our claws were cut and our teeth were cleaned and he even washed our ears! I stood everything very well but that. I do hate to have my ears washed. Don’t you?

 

As for that bare spot on the end of my tail, poor William worked and worked and fussed and fussed and worried and worried over that. “I’m thinking,” he told me once, “that it would be fine if you’d wag your tail hard when the judge is looking at you and maybe he won’t see where the hair’s off!” I suspected that William put some sort of medicine in our food those days. I couldn’t find it, but there was a little different taste to things. I think that is a very mean thing to do to a dog. Poor Freya had a hard time getting enough to eat that week, because William said she was a little too fat and so he only gave her about half what he usually did. Sometimes, if I wasn’t awfully³ hungry and William wasn’t looking, I’d leave a little in my dish and let her finish it.

 

Of course all the attention we had took a lot of time and it was hard to stay quiet so long. But I went through with it as best I could because I knew that the nicer I looked at the show the more likely I was to get a pretty ribbon. The worst of it was that after William had groomed⁴ us we were supposed to be very good and keep ourselves clean. That wasn’t much trouble for Freya. She liked being fussed over and I think she was glad of an excuse to be lazy and lie around in the sun and not go hunting. But it wasn’t so easy for me, and try as hard as I might I seemed to be always getting into scrapes. Like the time I caught the turtle.

 

William had just fixed⁵ me all up until I felt much too clean for comfort and told me to be good and not get dirty. I really meant to obey him, but I didn’t think it was much fun to just lie around the stable and so I asked Freya to go for a run with me. She wouldn’t, though. She said William wouldn’t like it if she did. So I went off alone and wandered down into the meadow and chased grasshoppers⁶ for awhile. There isn’t much fun in that, though. They’re not good to eat when you catch them. So I went on down to the brook⁷ and presently I saw the funniest looking thing you can imagine. When I told Mother about it afterwards she said it was a turtle, but I didn’t know what it was then because I had never seen one before. It lived in a shell that was a sort of greenish-brown on top and yellow underneath⁸. There were two funny little paws on each side and a funny little tail behind and a much funnier little head in front, and it was crawling along very slowly toward the brook. I watched it a minute and then I ran up to it and barked. Then it did the queerest thing! Instead of barking back or saying “quack” like the ducks or “cluck” like the hens it just pulled itself inside that shell until there wasn’t anything in sight but the place it lived!

 

I thought that was very impolite and so I turned it over with my nose and barked again. But it wouldn’t come out. I barked at it a long time but it did no good, and then I lay down a little ways off and watched. Pretty soon the turtle thought I’d gone away and out came his head very, very slowly and he looked around with two little glittering yellow eyes. I think he was quite surprised to find himself on his back. He looked surprised, anyway, and he worked his paws and tried to turn himself over. Then he saw me, I guess, for he went back into his house very quickly again.

 

“You are a very stupid fellow,” I said, “whatever you are. Come on out and play.”

 

But he wouldn’t, and so pretty soon I went over to him and patted him with my paw. That didn’t bring him out, either. I made up my mind then that I’d take him home to Mother and ask her what he was. So I just picked him up in my mouth, house and all, and started along the brook with him. I had gone just a little ways when I felt a sharp pain in my lip, and I looked and that turtle had put his head out and was biting me! You may believe that I let go of him pretty quick! But he wouldn’t let go of me. He hung right on to my lip and swung there. I pawed at him and rubbed my head on the ground and howled, but it did no good. That turtle held on tight. By that time he was hurting a lot and I beganto yelp⁹ and roll around and shake my head and do everything I could think of to get rid of him. And in the middle of it I slipped over the side of the bank and rolled down into the brook on my back!

 

After that I don’t remember just what did happen for a minute or two. I know that the turtle was still there and that I stuck my head into the mud and rolled over and over in the water and had an awful time and almost drowned myself before that horrid¹⁰ turtle finally let go of me. When I crawled out I was covered with mud and water and my lip was bleeding and I was shaking all over. I laid down for a while on the bank to get my breath and then I went back to the stable, hoping I could get behind the flower-pots before William saw me. But I didn’t. He was washing a carriage, and Father was helping¹¹ him, when I got there, and he saw me before I could get by. My, but he was angry! He just took hold of me by the neck and held me with one hand and turned the hose on me with the other. Being washed with a hose is very unpleasant. The water gets in your eyes and mouth and ears. I had a very bad time of it. William scolded and scolded until he saw the place on my lip where the turtle had bitten me. Then he was sorry for me and dried me with a big chamois-skin and put some salve on the wound and it felt better. And I crawled behind the flower-pots and went to sleep.

 

Turtles and toads¹² and ducks and bees are not good for dogs. They don’t play fair. It’s funny the lot of trouble I got into down by that brook. There was the time the duck “quacked” at me and I fell into the mud and the time the toad¹³ poisoned my mouth and the time the turtle bit me. You would think that I’d have learned to stay away from the brook, but I never did.

1 groom   

vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁

参考例句：

• His father was a groom.他父亲曾是个马夫。
• George was already being groomed for the top job.为承担这份高级工作，乔治已在接受专门的培训。

2 glossy   

adj.平滑的；有光泽的

参考例句：

• I like these glossy spots.我喜欢这些闪闪发光的花点。
• She had glossy black hair.她长着乌黑发亮的头发。

3 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

4 groomed   

v.照料或梳洗（马等）( groom的过去式和过去分词 )；使做好准备；训练；（给动物）擦洗

参考例句：

• She is always perfectly groomed. 她总是打扮得干净利落。
• Duff is being groomed for the job of manager. 达夫正接受训练，准备当经理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

6 grasshoppers   

n.蚱蜢( grasshopper的名词复数 )；蝗虫；蚂蚱；（孩子）矮小的

参考例句：

• Grasshoppers die in fall. 蚱蜢在秋天死去。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There are usually a lot of grasshoppers in the rice fields. 稻田里通常有许多蚱蜢。 来自辞典例句

7 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

8 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

9 yelp   

vi.狗吠

参考例句：

• The dog gave a yelp of pain.狗疼得叫了一声。
• The puppy a yelp when John stepped on her tail.当约翰踩到小狗的尾巴，小狗发出尖叫。

10 horrid   

adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的

参考例句：

• I'm not going to the horrid dinner party.我不打算去参加这次讨厌的宴会。
• The medicine is horrid and she couldn't get it down.这种药很难吃，她咽不下去。

11 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

12 toads   

n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• All toads blink when they swallow. 所有的癞蛤蟆吞食东西时都会眨眼皮。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Toads have shorter legs and are generally more clumsy than frogs. 蟾蜍比青蛙脚短，一般说来没有青蛙灵活。 来自辞典例句

13 toad   

n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆

参考例句：

• Both the toad and frog are amphibian.蟾蜍和青蛙都是两栖动物。
• Many kinds of toad hibernate in winter.许多种蟾蜍在冬天都会冬眠。