The Curious Lobster

by Richard W. Hatch

  “I am sure we shall keep your secret,” said Mr. Lobster. “And I hope you realize that probably you are the largest and most handsome snake in the world, and the only one who owns an island. Islands are a great luxury, and owning one is a great distinction.”

  The snake lifted his head at those kind words, and some of his old pride returned. He went gliding into the woods a much happier snake than he had been before; and he left behind him three brave explorers who were also happy.

  The Pleasures of Exploring

  NOW THAT matters were arranged to the satisfaction of all, the three friends could once more forget all unpleasant things, and it was decided that they would remain on the island until they had explored every inch of it.

  Mr. Lobster wanted to travel completely around the island under water, so that he might know all about the bottom of the ocean in that neighborhood. He hoped that there would be many caves and many forests of seaweed. And he felt that there must be a good many kinds of small fish.

  Mr. Bear had dreamed so long of finding honey that he said he would explore the woods inch by inch in hopes of finding a honey tree where the bees had a home. “Now I can enjoy these woods,” he said. “You don’t mind a stealthy rustle if you know that a friend makes it.” He still felt more important than he had ever felt at home; so he was happy to stay on the island as long as Mr. Badger and Mr. Lobster wanted to.

  As for Mr. Badger, he felt that he had had a great victory, and he intended to enjoy the beach. “I shall explore every bit of it carefully,” he declared. “I almost feel as if I owned it myself. But I want to take it easy for a while; so, if Mr. Lobster will just bring me some clams, I shall do some fishing. Fishing is practically loafing, and I love loafing.”

  So that was the way things were settled.

  Mr. Lobster searched the ocean and brought Mr. Badger a good supply of clams, which he put in shallow water near shore, where Mr. Badger could reach them. And Mr. Badger made himself a burrow at the edge of the woods and lined it with dry leaves so that he could live underground and sleep in the kind of place he liked best. He said to Mr. Lobster, “Of course, anyone with any sense at all knows that if you must live on earth the only place for solid comfort and no one to bother you is underground.”

  Mr. Bear went to work to search the woods. “I shall have a home in a cave,” he said. “All powerful creatures live in houses or caves. But I shall see if I can find where the bees have hidden honey before I decide where to live. If I find honey, I shall live near there. A home near honey is perfect.”

  He went off into the woods, not worrying about the snake at all, he said, but growling every now and then as he went along, just to make sure that everyone knew who was coming. He considered that in the dark woods where he was a stranger a little noise like a growl once in a while was a great comfort.

  Mr. Lobster took to the sea, although he planned to come ashore and crawl on the beach and in the woods once in a while so that he could keep in practice living out of water. Also, he was still very curious about birds and trees and such land things, and he liked to watch birds flying, which was a wonderful thing he was most curious about. So he couldn’t think of spending all his time under water, although he knew, in spite of what Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear had said, that under water was really the best place of all. “I suppose,” he said to himself, “that each person thinks his own home is the best; just think of all the best places there must be in the world! It is a very comforting thought.”

  Before the three friends separated they agreed to meet from time to time, just as they used to before they started exploring. In the meantime Mr. Bear’s boat was left alone and deserted, floating quietly with its bow resting on the beach and very little in it except the water jug, which was still empty, and the coil of rope.

  All through the summer and the first days of September with its cool nights and fresh breezes, the weather was perfect for exploring. Day after day the island lay in the bright sun, and the ocean was marvelously blue. The three friends were having a wonderful time.

  After a week of hunting, Mr. Bear found an enormous store of honey in a hollow stump where he could reach it with scarcely any effort at all. When he made this discovery he rushed to tell Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger.

  “Exploring is truly wonderful!” he exclaimed. “This is the greatest find of my life! Probably I shan’t see you for a few days because I shall be too full to travel.” And he rushed away to the woods again.

  “Well,” said Mr. Badger to Mr. Lobster, “I believe I shall have a feast myself. The fish here have an unusually fine flavor—much better than any others I ever ate. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Oh, not at all,” said Mr. Lobster.

  Then, being left entirely alone and without any plans to meet his friends until their feasting was over, he continued his travels alone.

  The next day he came out on the beach some distance from the boat. For a time he watched the birds flying, and he watched the moving of the tree tops, bent by the mysterious and invisible wind, that wanderer of the sky who never rests and yet is never tired. And the rustling of all the leaves fascinated him. “How interesting it is,” he thought. “Some of the wind is pushing the clouds across the sky, which must take a great deal of strength, and some of it is just playing with these leaves. It is strong, and it is gentle. You can’t ever see the wind, but you can see where it is.”

  And then, while he was watching the trees, he noticed that a slender tree just beyond the edge of the woods seemed to have different leaves from those on the trees near it. There were patches of bright blue amongst the green leaves. “I must ask Mr. Badger about that,” Mr. Lobster said to himself.

  Next he saw a bird alight in a tree, and he thought, “I wish I could fly through the air just once to see what it is like.”

  For a time he considered taking a short crawl in the woods, but then he decided to continue along the beach.

  He had not gone very far when he came to a huge black boulder with a line around it which showed where the tide came, and seaweed was hanging down below the line. He crawled around it and looked up the beach and was surprised to see another creature traveling in the same direction that he was. Mr. Lobster looked very carefully. He felt sure that the other creature was the talkative turtle, but as they were both going the same way, and he could see only a huge shell and a short tail, he was not sure enough to call out.

  So he began to hurry, crawling as fast as he could to catch up with the shell. As the turtle was moving too, Mr. Lobster had to move his eight legs faster than he had ever moved them before. Soon he was gaining on the turtle. He hurried more. When he reached a spot just behind the short tail, he called out, “Wait a minute!” and fairly rushed past so that he could see the creature face to face.

  It was the talkative turtle. Mr. Lobster recognized him at once. But the turtle, seeing Mr. Lobster rush past him, gave a single gasp of horror and then pulled in his head completely out of sight.

  Mr. Lobster was amazed. It seemed a most discourteous greeting.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said politely, “but aren’t you the turtle who gave me a ride last fall? I am Mr. Lobster.”

  “Impossible! Go away!” The turtle’s voice came from way inside his shell. “You are no such thing! I am seeing things.”

  “But I am Mr. Lobster. I couldn’t be anybody else,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “Lobsters don’t walk about on dry land. Oh, I am seeing things! I am seeing things! I am going crazy!” moaned the turtle.

  “Oh, no!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster. “Don’t be afraid. You may remember that you told me that you explored islands when you wanted to get away from everyone. Well, I go on land also, and I have been exploring this island. I am now an explorer, too, you see.”

  The turtle cautiously put out his head and opened his eyes. He looked very carefully at Mr. Lobster.

  “I guess it’s the truth after all,” he said finally. “Will wonders never cease? I thought it was your ghost
, or that I had lost my mind. You know how it is. Sometimes when you think you’ve gotten away from every one and everything, you come across the very worst thing possible. You really gave me quite a turn. And exploring! The idea! Well, here I am, two hundred and twenty years old and still learning new things. This will certainly be a lesson to me: never think you know it all!”

  Mr. Lobster was almost out of breath just from listening, for the turtle was now talking as fast as though he had not been frightened at all.

  “I hope you are well,” he said.

  “Oh, fine, fine. Nothing so healthy as a turtle, you know. Best luck on earth to be a turtle, I’ve always said!”

  “And I trust that you had a nice winter,” Mr. Lobster said.

  “Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Nothing like southern waters, you know, for comfort and ease; and there are many more islands in the south then there are here. Islands all over the place. Ocean’s full of them. Of course, the place is overrun with sharks and swordfish and tuna, but I don’t mind them.”

  The southern waters did not sound very attractive to Mr. Lobster. He considered sharks and monstrous fishes unpleasant creatures. He decided to change the subject.

  “I should like to have you meet my friends, Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear,” he said.

  “Oh, no, please don’t insist,” protested the turtle. “I’m on my vacation, and I prefer to wait a few days before I meet anybody. There’s so much going on in the ocean, you know, and I’ve only just this minute come ashore to get away from it all. After a time, after a time. After all, what’s the good in hurrying? So many people want to do everything today. Ridiculous, I say. Ridiculous! Do it tomorrow. Do it a week from tomorrow. Or in two or three years.”

  “Perhaps you would like to have me go away,” Mr. Lobster suggested.

  “Not unless you want to. Don’t feel that way. Old friends are like old places you’ve known a long time. No trouble at all. No trouble at all. Besides, I believe I’d like your company. You’re a good listener, and I do like a good, intelligent listener. Gives me someone to talk to, and I’m a natural talker, you know. And there’s no one I know around here except a serpent, and I steer clear of serpents. Can’t hurt me, of course, but I don’t feel just right in my stomach when they’re around. You come along with me.”

  So Mr. Lobster and the turtle spent three days walking together while Mr. Bear and Mr. Badger feasted. Although Mr. Lobster got a little tired of listening all the time and only putting in a small word every now and then, he found the turtle most interesting. And he learned so much from the stories of the turtle’s travels that he considered the three days profitably spent.

  “In a way,” he said to himself when he was thinking things over, “just listening is very restful and it is one of the easiest ways of being polite. Also, if you listen to the right person you learn a great deal, and the turtle seems to be the right person.”

  The fourth day the turtle said that he was going back into the ocean for a day or two. “I shall be glad to meet your friends when I come ashore again, if I am not too tired,” he remarked. “You may meet some of my distant relatives if you continue your travels here. There’s a small pond in the woods, and several turtles live there. Only mud turtles, and very inferior and disagreeable, always biting; but they are relatives and I have to admit it. Well, good-by for a while.”

  He ambled slowly away to the water, and Mr. Lobster went in search of Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear. He met them both walking along the beach, looking for him.

  “I hope you have both feasted well,” he said, after he had told them about meeting the talkative turtle again.

  “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Badger. “That is one thing I always do perfectly. It is such a pleasure to rest one’s brains and use only the stomach for a time, and you know how I love pleasure.”

  “Me too,” said Mr. Bear. “And I’ve had such a good time I forgot to growl for three days.”

  “Well, it’s time for action now,” said Mr. Badger cheerfully. “We must all do something. We must have some excitement.”

  “Can’t we just have pleasure for a little while longer?” asked Mr. Bear.

  “Excitement is the best pleasure of all,” answered Mr. Badger.

  “I don’t feel sure about that,” muttered Mr. Bear, “but we’ll see.”

  “I know one thing I should like to do,” said Mr. Lobster. “There is a small tree I discovered which has blue amongst the leaves, and I am curious about it. I want Mr. Badger to explain it to me.”

  “Then we shall go there at once,” said Mr. Badger, who was always eager to explain.

  They started along the beach, but they had gone only a short distance in the direction of Mr. Lobster’s tree when there came a voice from the woods.

  “Where are the explorers? Where are the explorers?”

  “It is the snake!” exclaimed Mr. Bear. “I hope it doesn’t mean trouble.”

  “Perhaps he wants his island back,” suggested Mr. Lobster.

  “Where are the explorers?” came the cry of the snake again. “I need help!”

  “Here we are!” called Mr. Badger. “We are coming!”

  The three of them hurried toward the sound of the voice, and the snake kept calling as though he were in great distress.

  They found the snake in such an unhappy condition that it was no wonder he had called out so. For there was a large knot tightly tied in his tail.

  “I have been to the pond,” he explained. “There is some beautiful mud there, and once in a while I go to glide back and forth on it. It soothes my nerves. And today I coiled up in the sun to take a nap after I had finished gliding, and I dreamed that I was poisonous and fierce, and that I was attacked by a lion. I fought and I fought. I coiled tighter and tighter around the lion. It was a terrible battle. And then, all of a sudden, I woke up and there was this horrible knot in my tail. It is a disgrace. I could never face anybody in such a condition. What shall I do?”

  “Does it hurt?” asked Mr. Lobster.

  “It hurts my feelings,” said the snake.

  “And that is the worst kind of hurt,” said Mr. Lobster wisely; “so we must see what we can do about it. Mr. Badger is very clever, and I am sure that we can untie you if he takes charge.”

  Mr. Badger was only too glad to take charge, and he made an examination of the knot. It was a very tight knot indeed, and enough to make any self-respecting snake feel unhappy; but for an old sailor like Mr. Badger it seemed comparatively simple.

  “You take hold of the beginning of the snake’s tail,” said Mr. Badger to Mr. Lobster.

  “How can he?” put in Mr. Bear, who was very much interested in the matter. “The snake’s tail doesn’t begin anywhere, because he is all tail. All it has is an end.”

  “Hush!” said Mr. Badger. “Anything that has an end has to have a beginning.”

  “I’m not so sure,” persisted Mr. Bear. “Things that have a beginning don’t always have an end. Look at the earth and the ocean and such things. They never end, but they must have had beginnings.”

  “Well, I have both,” said the snake to decide the matter. “I will show you.”

  And he showed Mr. Lobster where to take hold.

  Mr. Lobster took a firm hold. He held on so tightly that when Mr. Badger began to untie the knot the snake hissed. This startled Mr. Lobster so that he let go.

  “Please hold on,” begged the snake. “I didn’t mean to hiss, but I couldn’t help it.”

  Mr. Lobster took hold again. Mr. Badger pulled harder and harder at the knot. Mr. Lobster held on even tighter.

  The snake hissed again, which was really quite embarrassing for him, for it sounded so impolite and he didn’t want to appear impolite at all. But this time Mr. Lobster held on just the same, and after a few minutes of hard work Mr. Badger got the knot untied and the snake was perfect again.

  “I can’t thank you enough,” said the grateful snake. “I see that you are really true friends, and I only wish that I could give you something. Bu
t I own nothing but my island, and I hope you won’t take that for keeps.”

  “Friends do not expect any return for help,” said Mr. Lobster. “We are glad that we could help you. And now we must be going.”

  The snake went off happily, and the three friends returned to the beach to search for the tree Mr. Lobster was curious about.

  MR. BADGER GOT THE KNOT UNTIED AND THE SNAKE WAS PERFECT AGAIN.

  “It all goes to show how superior bears are,” said Mr. Bear. “You never see a bear getting into trouble with his tail. We know better than to have such long ones.”

  They went steadily on, but it was nearly night before they came to Mr. Lobster’s tree. Since it was too dark for Mr. Badger to see the top of the tree, they decided to wait until morning. Mr. Bear and Mr. Badger settled down in the woods for the night, and Mr. Lobster crawled into the ocean.

  Mr. Lobster Flies Through the Air

  WHEN MR. LOBSTER came ashore the next morning it was rather late, for he had been hungry after his long crawl the day before, and he had spent a long time catching breakfast. And it was such an unusually large breakfast that he crawled very slowly afterwards.

  Mr. Badger and Mr. Bear were already on the beach, and Mr. Badger had been examining the trees.

  “Good morning,” he said to Mr. Lobster. “Is that the tree you were curious about?”

  Mr. Lobster looked up.

  “Yes,” he said. “Isn’t that a strange color for leaves?”

  “Those are not leaves,” explained Mr. Badger. “Those are grapes. That is why they are blue. There is a grapevine growing up the tree.”

  “Grapes,” said Mr. Lobster. “Well, well. I wish I could see them closer.”

  “They’re sour grapes,” said Mr. Badger firmly. “Not worth bothering about.”

  “Can you tell that they are sour without even tasting them?” asked Mr. Lobster, who was amazed at Mr. Badger’s knowledge.

  “Oh, yes. You see, grapes that you can’t reach are always sour.”