Fishing was one of Timothy Turtle's favorite sports. He was a skillful fisherman, too. And though it only happened once that he caught more than one fish at a time, on that occasion he captured seven. This was the way it happened:  
Johnnie Green had come to Black to fish for pickerel. And Timothy Turtle was much annoyed when he found Johnnie fishing in the pool that he liked best of all. Timothy thought it was mean of Johnnie Green to catch his fish, in his creek.
 
And Timothy's beady eyes glared as hep. 105 watched Johnnie from a safe hiding-place under the bank.
 
He saw that Johnnie Green was a good fisherman. Before he moved on he caught three big fish from that pool; and one of them—the biggest of the three—was the very fish on which Timothy Turtle had been expecting to dine that day.
 
It was really no wonder that he was annoyed. And when Johnnie went further up the creek to try his luck elsewhere Timothy Turtle slipped into the water and followed him.
 
The more fish he saw Johnnie Green catch, the angrier Timothy grew. And he went out of his way to tell a number of his neighbors what was happening.
 
"Something ought to be done about it!" he complained.
 
"Why don't you go down and speak to Farmer Green?" Peter suggested.p. 106 Peter liked fish, too. And he had often said that Johnnie had no right to take food away from him, when everybody knew that there was a plenty at the .
 
Timothy Turtle did not care for Peter's suggestion.
 
"I've no time to waste talking to Farmer Green," he said. "It seems to me a letter would be better. Now, if somebody would write a letter, and get everybody to sign his name to it, and send it down to Farmer Green by a messenger, I would do my share to help. I would tell the messenger where to leave the letter so that Farmer Green would be sure to find it." Timothy then said that he must hurry back to the creek, for he wanted to see how many fish Johnnie G............