Turtle Stump
Over the many summers at Hillsboro Camp we spent a lot of hours on Turtle Stump: catching turtles, catching frogs, sailing small boats made from pieces of wood from the wood shed, watching the pickerels hunt smaller fish and frogs, or just hanging out staring at the tangle of roots beneath the surface of the lake.
Turtle Stump is just off the shore on the side of Sing-Sing Beach going toward the Mess Hall. I asked my mother once why the under side of the stump was charred. She said, "Your grandfather tried to burn it out one time, but it wouldn't burn so he left it. It must have been the biggest tree in the area before it was cut down. "
At Turtle Stump one evening I was balancing along the main root back to the shore. Where the root divides and merges into the bank, I saw a huge reptilian head poking out of the water between the roots.
"Hey Richie, look at this frog, --- or something! He's got the meanest look ever," I called out.
Richie set his home made fishing pole down on the top of the stump, crossed from his root over to mine balancing carefully. Turtle Stump had two main roots connecting it to the shore. The larger root was on the side toward the Mess Hall and the canoe dock. Midway between the shore and the stump, a root crossed parallel to the shore connecting the two main roots.
"Where, exactly, is this mean critter?" Richie came up behind me on the root.
I stepped across to the shore so that Richie could examine it. "Down there, next to the bank, where the root goes..."
"Oh, yeah, I see it! I wonder if it would eat some bread?" Richie pulls piece of bread that he'd been using for fishing bait, rolls it into a ball and drops it down next to the frog's head. "He's pretty brave for a frog. Most frogs would've jumped away by now."
"Maybe it’s a big water snake!" I said.
"I can't see its body. There seems to be a little cave here where the ground is held up by the roots, I never really noticed it before,” said Richie.
The mysterious head withdrew under the pool of water between two roots and the shore. Then the head withdrew even further under the overhanging bank.
Richie and I waited patiently in the evening stillness. The marble sized ball of bread floated gently near where the creature had disappeared. A few gentle thumps of fiber glass on wood signaled that campers were putting a canoe away on the canoe dock by the Mess Hall about 25 yards up the shore north of us. The evening canoe period had come to an end as the sun began to set behind the pines across the lake. I killed a mosquito against my cheek and it fell into water where the mysterious head had been.
One of the campers, a tall thin blonde girl about my age, 11 or 12, came walking past the stump from the Mess Hall. I don't remember her name. I believe that she only attended camp a couple of seasons.
"What are you guys doing?" She called from the road.
"We think we found a huge snake..." said Richie.
"Or maybe it’s a giant turtle," I said.
She came over and squatted down next to us. She pushed her hair out her eyes. Richie and I were on two different roots. She was on the shore.
"Look there, its back!" Richie said.
The awesome head had quietly returned while we were talking to the camper. It opened its mouth, wider and wider, a big pink chasm in that greenish black head.
"It’s going for the bread,” whispered Richie.
We watched it grab the bread and pull back under ground again.
"That's a frog,” said the camper. "Its not a snake or a turtle, its just a big frog."
"No way!" said Richie.
"Well that's what it is. You can catch it and find out," she walked off.
In the next few days we spent every chance looking for the giant turtle. Aunt Puffy said. "Oh, that must be one of the snapper turtles come back to the lake. We used to have several of them. Johnny carried them all off down to the brook and let them go." Johnny had been the camp handy man a few summers before. This summer Wendell was doing that job.
Harry said, "Maybe this is the grand daddy turtle."
Campers either didn't believe there was a giant turtle or they thought that it was really big frog --- the Bull Frog.
It began to show up in the evenings. When it moved it always followed under the roots so we couldn't see it. The swirl of rotting leaves and mud on the bottom in its wake was what we used to track it along under the roots of Turtle Stump.
One evening Wendell came to check out the "giant turtle" he'd heard Richie, Jimmy, Harry and I talking about.
We climbed out onto the stump. I went to the northeast, lakeside edge; Jimmy was south of me crouched in the depression we called the "chair" where he could view the cave under the scorched shore side of the stump. Harry staked out the root closest to Sing-Sing beach in amongst the lake grass. Richie had the prime spot on the major root connecting the stump to the shore. This was where we'd first seen the giant turtle.
Wendell sat on Sing-Sing Beach with a stalk of grass in his mouth. He was talking to a couple of camp counselors who had come over from the "Keep Out." The sun was low, shining golden off the canoe dock and the trees of the shore. I heard a whip-o-will call out.
We sat patient as Indians, watching our pellets of "turtle bread" be eaten up by minnows, sunfish, and regular painted turtles. The painted turtles came in all sizes, but none were larger that the size of my hand.
"I saw it!" said Jimmy. He was pointing into the cave space under the shore side of the stump. He lost his footing and one foot dipped into the water drenching his sneaker and jeans up to the knee.
I climbed to the rugged top of the stump and hung my head over to look down into the water. As the ripples from Jimmy's disturbance settled out I could see swirls of mud and leaves in a path across the bottom. The trail led to the main root that Richie was on.
"Richie, he's coming your way!" I said.
"10-4" said Richie, "Got it covered." He had a 3-foot stick in his hand. He stuck it down through the roots.
"Wendell, get over here." Richie called. "I've blocked the door to his home under the ground so he'll have to come out in the open."
Wendell stood up, threw away his stalk of grass, brushed the sand from the seat of his shorts as he walked over. "Do you see it yet Richie?"
"There it is, hurry!" said Richie.
Wendell reached down into the water, groped around for a moment,
and pulled. It looked like he had the tail of big, big, snake in his muscular hand. The spiked end of the tail was trying to curl around his wrist. As Wendell lifted, he pulled a humungous turtle out of the water from under the stump’s root. Wendell held it at arms length, angled away from his body. Its long neck was arching around, mouth wide, trying to find something to bite.
Its black, horned shell was a big around as a dinner plate. The way its legs and head flailed around, the shell seemed to be the smallest part of its body. A hissing sound came from its mouth.
Campers were screaming.
Wendell walked over to Sing-Sing Beach and held the snapper for us to see. Harry lost his footing and slipped off his root. His sneakers got soaked and muddy as he waded through the lake grass to shore. Richie, Jimmy, and I joined the crowd of campers and counselors surrounding Wendell and the giant turtle.
Each segment of the turtle's shell had a bit of a raised point to it. The sections at the edges of the shell formed jagged edges, like a saw blade. The top of the shell could have been made into an Indian’s war shield.
The under side of the shell was a light yellow and looked like a sleeveless tank-top and Speedo bathing trunks arrangement --- not much shirt or pants, but a lot of arm, leg, and neck room.
"Oh! Ah!" said the crowd, as Wendell, back arched, walked up the beach.
"Set it down on the sand,” said one of the campers.
Wendell set the snapper turtle gently down on the crest of Sing-Sing Beach, facing the lake. The crowd formed a circle around Wendell and the giant turtle.
The snapper didn't crawl on its belly like a painted turtle. The snapper raised its entire body up off the sand on its four sturdy legs; at least two inches up. Its scaly tail dragged, its long claws extended from every webbed scaly toe.
It stretched its head around eyes glaring, opening its mouth wide and hissing.
A girl screamed.
"Wendell, why don't you take it over and put it in the brook?" Aunt Puffy had come over from the kitchen to see what the noise was about.
"I was thinking keeping him as a pet up at the Pad." said Wendell. "The Pad" was the name Wendell had given to Hayloft when he moved in there at the beginning of the summer. Several girls squealed and giggled.
"Oh don't do that." said Aunt Puffy.
"Just kidding." said Wendell.
"Neat-o Cool!" said Richie.
We followed Wendell across the road from the Manor House, down to the track field. We crossed the track field to the brook on the other side. He set the snapper free in a calm backwater just downstream from the small footbridge.
"I'm not going wading in there anymore,” said one of the campers.
A few weeks later, there was a giant snapping turtle at Turtle Stump again. I don't know if it was the same one or his brother. Camp was closed; filled with the aching silence of the end of another season. Winter came, and next summer he was still at the stump, a dark, mysterious, terror, lurking under the roots of Turtle Stump.
