ag3

    "I soon came to know individually the dozen or more turtles that kept to my side of the pond. Shortly after the cold mist would lift and melt away they would stick up their heads through the quiet water; and as the sun slanted down over the ragged rim of tree tops the slow things would float into the warm, lighted spots, or crawl out and doze comfortably on the hummocks and snags.
    "What fragrant mornings those were! How fresh and new and unbreathed! The pond odors, the woods odors, the odors of the ploughed fields, of water lily, and wild grape, and the dew-laid soil! I can taste them yet, and hear them yet--the still, large sounds of the waking day, the pickerel breaking the quiet with his swirl; the kingfisher dropping anchor; the stir of feet and wings among the trees. And then the thought of the great book being held up for me! Those were rare mornings!
    "But there began to be a good many of them, for the turtles showed no desire to lay. They sprawled in the sun, and never one came out upon the sand as if she intended to help on the great professor's book. The embryology of her eggs was of small concern to her; her contribution to the Natural History of the United States could wait.
    "And it did wait. I began my watch on the fourteenth of May; June first found me still among the cedars, still waiting, as I had waited every morning, Sundays and rainy days alike. June first saw a perfect morning, but every turtle slid out upon her log, as if egg laying might be a matter strictly of next year.
    "I held on to the tree and watched, as she tried this place, and that place, and the other place - the eternally feminine! But the place, evidently, was hard to find. What could a female turtle do with a whole field of possible nests to choose from? Then at last she found it, and, whirling about, she backed quickly at it, and, tail first, began to bury herself before my staring eyes.
    "Those were not the supreme moments of my life; perhaps those moments came later that day; but those certainly were among the slowest, most dreadfully mixed of moments that I ever experienced. They were hours long. There she was, her shell just showing, like some old hulk in the sand along shore. And how long would she stay there? And how should I know if she had laid an egg?
    "I could still wait. And so I waited, when, over the freshly awakened fields, floated four mellow strokes from the distant town clock.
    "Four o'clock! Why, there was no train until seven! No train for three hours! The eggs would spoil! Then with a rush it came over me that this was Sunday morning, and there was no regular seven o'clock train, none till after nine.
    "I think I should have fainted had not the turtle just then begun crawling off. I was weak and dizzy; but there, there in the sand, were the eggs! And Agassiz! And the great book! And I cleared the fence, and the forty miles that lay between me and Cambridge, at a single jump. He should have them, trains or no. Those eggs should go to Agassiz by seven o'clock, if I had to gallop every mile of the way. Forty miles! Any horse could cover it in three hours, if he had to; and, upsetting the astonished turtle, I scooped out her round white eggs.
    "On a bed of sand in the bottom of the pail I laid them, with what care my trembling fingers allowed; filled in between them with more sand; so with another layer to the rim; and, covering all smoothly with more sand, I ran back for my horse.
"That horse knew, as well as I, that the turtle had laid, and that he was to get those eggs to Agassiz. He turned out of that field into the road on two wheels, a thing he had not done for twenty years, doubling me up before the dashboard, the pail of eggs miraculously lodged between my knees.
    "I let him out. If only he could keep this pace all the way to Cambridge! Or even halfway there; and I should have time to finish the trip on foot. I shouted him on, holding to the dasher with one hand, the pail of eggs with the other, not daring to get off my knees, though the bang on them, as we pounded down the wood road, was terrific. But nothing must happen to the eggs; they must not be jarred, or even turned over in the sand before they came to Agassiz.
    "In order to get out on the pike it was necessary to drive back away from Boston toward the town. We had nearly covered the distance, and were rounding a turn from the woods into the open fields, when, ahead of me, at the station it seemed, I heard the quick sharp whistle of a locomotive.
    "What did it mean? Then followed the puff, puff, puff of a starting train. But what train? Which way going? And, jumping to my feet for a longer view, I pulled into a side road that paralleled the track, and headed hard for the station.
    "We reeled along. The station was still out of sight, but from behind the bushes that shut it from view rose the smoke of a moving engine. It was perhaps a mile away, but we were approaching, head-on, and, topping a little hill, I swept down upon a freight train, the black smoke pouring from the stack, as the mighty creature pulled itself together for its swift run down the rails.
    "My horse was on the gallop, going with the track, and straight toward the coming train. The sight of it almost maddened me, the bare thought of it, on the road to Boston! On I went; on it came, a half, a quarter of a mile between us, when suddenly my road shot out along an unfenced field with only a level stretch of sod between me and the engine.
"With a pull that lifted the horse from his feet, I swung him into the field and sent him straight as an arrow for the track. That train should carry me and my eggs to Boston!
    "The engineer pulled the rope. He saw me standing up in the rig, saw my hat blow off, saw me wave my arms, saw the tin pail swing in my teeth, and he jerked out a succession of sharp halts! But it was he who should halt, not I; and on we went, the horse with a flounder landing the carriage on top of the track.
    "The train was already grinding to a stop; but before it was near a stand-still I had backed off the track, jumped out, and, running down the rails with the astonished engineers gaping at me, had swung aboard the cab.
    "They offered no resistance; they hadn't had time. Nor did they have the disposition, for I looked strange, not to say dangerous. Hatless, dewsoaked, smeared with yellow mud, and holding, as if it were a baby or a bomb, a little tin pail of sand.
    "'Crazy,' the fireman muttered, looking to the engineer for his cue.
"I had been crazy, perhaps, but I was not crazy now.