Turtle Eggs

Turtle Eggs

One warm, late spring morning, Daddy noticed that the gas truck driver had taken the pasture road to the neighbor’s and had gotten stuck. At dinner, he told my sister and me to ride over to the property line to make certain that the gate had been closed securely when he had finally gotten himself dug out of the soft sand.

As soon as the dishes had been done, we took off. We rode bareback as often as possible and since we knew we would be beside the fence so we could get back on if we had to close the gate, we galloped bareback out into the pasture.

It wasn’t hard to tell where the truck had been stuck. It probably had taken the driver twice as long to get out of the sand as it would have to drive the longer distance over the regular road. The gate had been closed securely but in the soft sand we saw some leathery eggs.

We jumped off our horses and gathered a dozen or so. We’d have pet turtles. We’d be able to show them off to our friends. We would have to catch bugs and things to feed them. We’d have to build a special pen for them so they wouldn’t escape but would still have space to move about.

Fortunately, I was wearing a kerchief so we fashioned a pouch to carry them home. Carol got on her horse and held the pouch while I got on mine. But I carried them home because I was older. No galloping now. I had to hold the pouch with one hand and the reins with the other.

When we got home, we found a pan and some screen. We put the eggs in the pan and covered them with sand. We put the screen over the top so the baby turtles wouldn’t crawl out. Then we put the pan on the cellar where it could absorb the morning sun. Then we set about designing a pen.

A few days later Mother came into the house from the back yard and said, quite sternly, “You take those baby snakes way out in the middle of the meadow and turn them loose NOW.”