TITLE: Adventures of Ron Huckleberry...# 6 Little turtles By gene hudgens 01/06/08 |
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Little Turtles
Ron is still spending the summer with his grandparents and his Auntie Jane. For some reason they all fear that Ron will get into some mischief if he is out of their sight. Ron just wants to have nice clean fun, but it seems no one else has his sense of humor…or something.
It has been raining a lot for three days and Ron has been confined in the house too much, because the women fear he might catch a cold. At least this is how Ron feels. When he is finally allowed to get out side and play he naturally looks for some fun to have.
Across the highway from his grandparents house is a creek that runs behind the church, small local mill and milk plant. It isn’t deep; perhaps a foot or so at the most…even after a lot of rain. The water is always nice and cool and Ron often wades in the creek barefooted. He has even tried to catch some small fish, but with out any luck. The little fish are always smarter than Ron.
This particular day Ron has never seen so many little turtles. The creek seems filled with the little creatures. He rushes back to his grandparent’s house and looks for some containers. In Granddaddy’s garage he finds two small metal buckets. He grabs the buckets and rushes back to the creek. He soon has both buckets filled with turtles. He then slowly carries the heavy buckets full of turtles back towards his grandparent’s house. He stops at least fifty times to rest, but finally manages to get his new friends in to the yard. He finds a shady area near the house and dumps the turtles.
Ron repeats this routine for what seems like hours…until his grandmother calls him for supper. By this time he has brought more than a hundred of the little turtles in to the yard. He is proud and happy. As soon as he finishes supper he rushes out side to check on the turtles. They have naturally crawled in several directions, but mainly under the old house. Ron collects several rocks and tries to make a fence to enclose his little friends.
He is very busy when his grandmother comes into the yard to check on him. When she sees the millions of turtles she screams and runs in to the house to phone Auntie.
Within minutes Auntie arrives to see what the problem is. “Look in the back yard.” she motions to Auntie. When Auntie sees the many turtles she begins laughing. This is a mistake, because grandmother starts crying.
Auntie takes Ron to the front porch and they sit in the big swing as she begins to quietly explain that when she was a child she too had collected several turtles. She continues to explain in her “teacher” way that it isn’t fair to the turtles to be taken out of the water and placed in a dry yard. “Ron”, she says “Would you like it if someone took you away and locked you in a basement?” She explains that the little turtles need water and to be with their friends. Right now they aren’t happy and might die.
After a while Ron understands and Auntie and Ron work together taking the little creatures back to the creek. It is dark when they finally finish taking the last of the turtles back to their home. “Ron, tomorrow you go to the creek and play with your little friends all day. They might even enjoy your attention. Who knows…they might remember you and come back to this same place next year?” She explains.
Auntie holds Ron’s hand as they walk back to give grandmother a report. Grandmother is now calm and has already fixed the three of them a cup of hot chocolate, which they enjoy with some of her homemade cookies.
And so is another of Ron’s adventures.
© GENE HUDGENS
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