One day, we had a hobo come walking up the driveway.   There were a lot of men who had lost their jobs and sometimes, they took to the farm country trying to find a place to work.

Momma was kind of afraid of them and usually hid in the bedroom and didn't answer the door.   This time, she didn't see the hobo until he was knocking on the door and it was too late to hide.   He had seen her through the kitchen window. It would have been impolite to run and hide and pretend no one was at home, so she had to answer the door.

"Missus, can I work for supper?" he asked.

"Well, you'll have to ask my husband.   He's in the back pasture, down the lane, back there," Momma said, as she pointed to show the man the way to the pasture.

Daddy must have said "yes" because that hobo stayed with us and worked for us all summer long.

His name was Mr. Mike and he was really nice to me.  

One day, Mr. Mike caught a mud turtle in the creek and gave it to me.   He painted my initials on the turtle's tummy with black paint and drilled a hole through the turtle's shell outer edge.   The turtle didn't even wiggle too much, so it must not have hurt him.

Mr. Mike put a string through the hole and showed me how to take my turtle for a walk.   We kept him in a big tin tub with some water and a rock in the middle, so he could sun himself.   I caught flies for the turtle to eat.

Before Mr. Mike left that fall, he took the turtle out of the tub.   He handed the turtle to me and we walked back to the creek.

Mr. Mike said, "We have to let your turtle go so he can spend the winter in the nice warm mud at the bottom of the creek."

As we watched the turtle swim away, Mr. Mike said, "Now, next spring you come back here and look for him."

The next spring, I looked for my turtle.   Every turtle I found, I turned over to see if my initials were on his tummy.   Although I had many turtles after that and kept them in the tub all summer long, I never found my very own turtle again.