A very quiet group of children gathered at breakfast the next morning. Conversation was intermittent and devoted mainly to piling offers of assistance in the housework on Granny and Mrs. Dore. “When you have finished your own work, we’ll see,” Mrs. Dore steadily answered all these suggestions. The children finished their work in record time and with the utmost care. The girls swept and dusted their chambers. They washed the furniture, the paint and the windows. Everything was taken out of closets and bureau-drawers, shaken and carefully put back. They shook rugs. The boys in a frenzy of emulation followed a program equally detailed. Having accomplished all this, the Big Six again begged for more work and Granny and Mrs. Dore, taking pity on the penitent little sinners, thought up all kinds of odd jobs for them to perform. At length, Maida said, “Now we’ve done all the work we can do, there’s one other thing I’d like to see attended to. I woke up in the middle of the night--I don’t know what woke me--but I began at once to think of that turtle--that poor, horrid turtle. And it suddenly came into my head that it was a very cruel thing to put a creature in fresh water who is accustomed to salt water. I suppose it’ll kill him in time, won’t it?” she appealed to Arthur. “Gee _whillikins_,” Arthur answered, “I never thought of that! Of course he’ll die. But what are we going to do about it?” “I thought,” Maida began very falteringly, “if you would let us, Granny, we’d ask Zeke to drive us over to the beach and we’d take the turtle and put him back in the water where he came from. We won’t stay there but a moment.” “I don’t see why you shouldn’t do that,” Mrs. Dore accorded them thoughtfully. “And as for me, I’ll be glad to be well rid of the craythur,” Granny said shudderingly. So it was settled. After luncheon, the three boys went down to the Magic Mirror, hauled the poor awkward beast out of the water; pulled it along the trail to the barn. They loaded it into the lunch hamper again; stowed it in the automobile; and then Zeke drove them to the beach. Once there, they lifted the hamper out of the machine, removed the cover and dumped its living contents onto the sand. There was no question as to the turtle’s wishes in this matter. Without an instant’s hesitation, he turned in the direction of the ocean; and lumbered toward it over the sand--lumbered awkwardly but with a surprising swiftness. The waves were piling in, like great ridges of melted glass, green edged with shining, opalescent filigree. They shattered themselves on the sand and seemed miraculously to turn into great fans of green emerald trimmed with pearl-colored, foam lace. The turtle struck the broken wave ... swam into it ... dove through the next wave ... and the next ... and the next.... Suddenly they lost sight of him. When they returned, still unnaturally quiet, to the Little House, to their great surprise Billy Potter came forward to meet them.