The Curious Lobster

by Richard W. Hatch

  “Oh, don’t go!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster.

  “That is life,” Mr. Bear went on, just muttering miserably to himself. “You think you are going to hatch eagles, and you hatch mud turtles instead.”

  With those sad words he looked around at his two friends. When he did so, he saw the forty-three mud turtles following him. At that shameful sight he let out a most fearful growl of rage, gave a great jump, and started running as fast as he could. He dashed across the beach and into the woods and disappeared.

  More Troubles—But a Happy Ending

  FOR THREE days Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger waited for Mr. Bear to return. There was not a single sign of him.

  “I am afraid we have had another unfortunate experience,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “It looks that way,” said Mr. Badger. “My idea certainly turned out very badly. It is a great pity.”

  “Do you know what happened to the mud turtles?”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Badger, “they have all gone into the woods, either to look for Mr. Bear or to find the pond where mud turtles live.”

  “If they could only have been eagles,” sighed Mr. Lobster.

  “Well, I wondered about that, I confess,” said Mr. Badger, “although I did not say anything.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. To tell the truth, you know I just cannot resist starting a little trouble once in a while. The owl told me that birds usually have only five or six eggs in their nests, or at most a dozen. So I was a little suspicious when I found the eggs, there were so many of them; but I thought it would be fun to make Mr. Bear sit on them. And I never dreamed of turtles!”

  “Mr. Badger, sometimes you amaze me,” said Mr. Lobster.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Badger, “I suppose I do. Sometimes I amaze myself.”

  The next day Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger decided to get the boat ready for the voyage home and then go and search for Mr. Bear. Everything was made clean and neat. The rope and fish lines and water jug were all put aboard. The supply of clams was left in the water where they could be gotten easily. Mr. Badger waded into the water and washed the boat, and he worked so hard that Mr. Lobster suspected there was something on his mind.

  “You are working very hard,” he observed.

  “Well,” said Mr. Badger, “perhaps Mr. Bear will feel happier and less angry with me when he returns if he finds his boat in good order and ready to sail for home.”

  “We must start searching for Mr. Bear this afternoon,” said Mr. Lobster. “We must get the snake to help.”

  But in the middle of the afternoon, just when the work on the boat was finished, the sky began to darken. Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger had been working so hard that they had not noticed the weather at all. Now they looked up into the sky and saw that there was going to be a bad storm.

  “We are going to have a tempest,” said Mr. Badger. “I guess I had better go to my burrow. The only place to be in a tempest is underground.”

  “I prefer the ocean, of course,” said Mr. Lobster. “I shall return when the storm is over.”

  The storm raged all that night. There was thunder and lightning, and a gale of wind that whipped the trees and roused the ocean to fury. Great waves pounded on the beach, making a thunderous and mighty sound, and shaking the earth so that Mr. Badger in his burrow thought the whole island was going to be pounded to pieces. And Mr. Lobster, whose temporary home was in shallow water, knew from the sand in the water and the stirring all about him that there was a great tumult going on. It was the kind of storm that makes you think the whole world is in confusion.

  Early in the morning the wind died down. By the time the blackness of night was fading and it was time for the sun to come up, the dark clouds went far out to sea and disappeared. The sky grew brighter. But the waves were still big and crashed hard upon the beach.

  It was difficult for Mr. Lobster to get ashore because of the waves, but he succeeded after being rolled over and over several times, and he hurried up the beach to find Mr. Badger.

  Mr. Badger was just coming out of his burrow.

  “What a night!” he exclaimed. “We must look after the boat.”

  They hurried to the little cove where the boat was kept.

  The boat was gone!

  “We are done for now,” said Mr. Badger.

  They both sat looking at the place where the boat had been. Neither of them could think of anything more to say. The disaster was too great.

  And while they were sitting there miserable and speechless there was a sound of hurrying from the woods and Mr. Bear came running toward them.

  “No more of this for me!” he was saying. “One more storm like that and there will be no island left. It will sink just like the other one I was on. I am going back to my home on solid land!”

  Then he paused for breath and looked around.

  “Where is my boat?” he demanded.

  “Gone,” said Mr. Badger.

  “Where is it gone? I want my boat!”

  “It must be floating on the sea,” said Mr. Lobster. “The storm did it.”

  Then all three friends were speechless. Mr. Bear seemed to have forgotten about the mud turtles. At last he gave a growl of complete sadness.

  “Whatever happens next is always worse than what happened before—if it happens to me,” he said. “We are lost.”

  “We are still on the island,” said Mr. Badger.

  “To be on an island forever is the same as being lost,” said Mr. Bear.

  “Maybe the boat will float back,” remarked Mr. Lobster, trying to think of something cheerful.

  “We can never go home,” said Mr. Bear, paying no heed. “All I know is that we can never go home. That is what comes of exploring.” And he looked hard at Mr. Badger.

  “I guess you’re right,” said Mr. Badger, “unless we swim home.”

  Everyone knew that Mr. Lobster was the only one who cared to be in the water.

  It seemed a most unhappy end to the summer. No one wanted to talk about it. No one said a word about the turtles or the adventures they had had. For the time being everything was sad, and everything joyful in the past was forgotten.

  “I suppose we shall have to borrow the island from the snake for quite a long time,” observed Mr. Lobster.

  “No, I shall do something about this,” said Mr. Bear in a firm voice. “I have been disgraced by mud turtles, and now my boat has been taken away. I can stand no more. I shall do something!”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I shall do something, I tell you.”

  After that it was evident that Mr. Bear had a secret. For that very afternoon he said to Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger:

  “I shall have special business on the other side of the island, and if you don’t mind I should like to be by myself.”

  There was nothing for the three explorers to do but stay on the island and make the best of things. Mr. Lobster tried to pretend that his temporary home was as delightful as his real home; but he knew that it was not so. And Mr. Badger tried to be bright and cheerful and made a good many jokes; but no one seemed to laugh at them.

  Every day Mr. Bear would disappear for hours. When he returned he was always sticky and wet and covered with sand. But he would not say a word about where he had been or what he had been doing.

  Mr. Lobster grew more and more curious day by day, but he was far too polite to inquire about a secret.

  Every morning and every afternoon when Mr. Bear returned from his secret business the three friends walked along the beach, searching the shore to see if Mr. Bear’s boat had drifted in, and looking out over the ocean to see if it was anywhere in sight out there.

  It was a most discouraging procedure as the days went by and there was no sight of the boat. Mr. Badger said that they would have to make a raft, but when they looked on the beach for wood there was nothing large enough to make a raft that would hold Mr. Bear.

  It was early one morning, before Mr. Bear had left to go off
on his secret, that the last great event of the summer happened.

  Mr. Badger was gazing out over the ocean. “Look!” he exclaimed. “Look out there!”

  Everyone looked.

  There was Mr. Bear’s boat, floating some distance from shore. Every one of them recognized it at once.

  “My boat!” cried Mr. Bear.

  “Quick, Mr. Lobster!” said Mr. Badger. “You can pull a boat. You must swim out and pull it ashore.”

  “I am sorry,” said Mr. Lobster, “but you will remember that you left the short rope on the seat of the boat, and there is no anchor rope because we had to cut it off. So I am afraid there is nothing I could pull the boat by, even if I swam out there.”

  It was true. Mr. Lobster could not get the boat after all, and he was the only one who was at home in the water.

  “I will get my boat!” declared Mr. Bear in a loud voice. “It is my boat, and I shall do something about it!”

  And then, before amazed Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger could say a word, Mr. Bear walked down to the water and went right out into the ocean. In another instant he was swimming straight for the boat.

  “It’s marvelous!” exclaimed Mr. Badger.

  They both watched, scarcely believing their eyes. It was impossible that Mr. Bear, who hated water, could be swimming in the ocean. And yet he was! And he swam without a pause straight to the boat and then climbed up over the side and got into it. In a moment or two Mr. Lobster and Mr. Badger saw the white sail being hoisted. The boat started sailing along with Mr. Bear at the helm.

  MR. BEAR WALKED DOWN TO THE WATER AND WENT RIGHT OUT INTO THE OCEAN.

  Mr. Bear brought the boat to shore like an old sailor and ran it gently up on the beach.

  “There!” he said.

  “I thought you hated water and couldn’t swim!” cried Mr. Badger.

  “I do hate water,” said Mr. Bear, “but I felt that I had to do something to redeem myself after the hideous affair with the mud turtles and the loss of my boat. Every afternoon I have been on the other side of the island learning how to swim.”

  “That was your secret!” exclaimed Mr. Lobster.

  “Yes, I decided not to talk any more about my accomplishments beforehand,” said Mr. Bear.

  Mr. Badger drew himself up very stiffly.

  “Mr. Bear,” he said, “I am proud of you. I am proud to know such a creature as you. You are a true hero!”

  “And I am proud of you, too,” said Mr. Lobster. “You are the most important hero of all, for if it had not been for you we might have stayed here forever!”

  It was the greatest moment of Mr. Bear’s life. He had never before been so happy.

  “Now we can sail,” he said.

  Mr. Badger ran and collected the clams that had been saved for the occasion. Then they all got in the boat. Mr. Badger took the sheet and tiller. Mr. Bear gave a push away from the beach.

  There was a twinkle in Mr. Badger’s eyes.

  “And where shall we go?” he asked.

  “Home!” cried Mr. Bear.

  “Home!” cried Mr. Lobster.

  “Home!” cried Mr. Badger himself.

  And they were all perfectly happy.

  RICHARD WARREN HATCH (1898–1959) grew up in Pennsylvania but lived for most of his adult life in Marshfield, Massachusetts, in a house that had been continuously occupied by his family since the middle of the seventeenth century. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1918, he joined the US Naval Reserve Flying Corps and later served during World War II. It was while stationed on an aircraft carrier that he came up with the idea of writing about the adventures of a very old lobster. From 1925 to 1941 Hatch taught English at Deerfield Academy, eventually becoming head of the English Department, and during the 1950s he lectured at the Center for International Studies at MIT. In addition to his books for children, he also wrote novels for adults set in coastal Massachusetts towns.

  MARION FREEMAN WAKEMAN (1891–1953) was born in Montclair, New Jersey, and attended Smith College before joining the Art Students League. She was a member of the National Association of Women Artists and exhibited her work at the National Academy of Design, the Montclair Art Museum, and Smith College.