Huntsville gazette., 1886-11-27
SO TENDER-HEARTED!
The Young Turkeys Dream and
It's Realization.

1t was one year ago this Thanksgiv-
ing Day. One year is not long time
to man-indeed, it is too often very
short time, especially when it is looked
back upon; but to the little brown tur-
key, fat and sleek, who was shut in
from the world behind the freckled
shell of a turkey-egg only one year
ago, it was very long time-almost
an age, in fact The turkey was laid
in straw-stack in the farther end of
the big field back of the barn. In the
side of this stack, so high up that it
could look over the hat of the tallest
man, the shrewd old mother turkey
followed out her nest. Within its
cozy sides she deposited an even dozen
freckled eggs, and there she patiently
sat five long weeks, warming the eggs
into life. 1t was on Thanksgiving Day
one year ago that the last one of the
eggs cracked its she'll, and from within
peeked out the subject of this sketch
as round, as downy, as bright-eyed and
inquisitive turkey-chiok as ever
looked out of shell upon this great,
wide, selfish, hungry world of ours.
The early life of turkey-chick is
not an eventful one. It's world is
hemmed in by the rail-fence which in
closes the barn-yard, and until its
wings are strong enough to carry its
7 owner over these confines into the
pasture beyond and up to the lower
limb of the old apple-tree. where its
elders nightly roost, it has little oppor-
tunity for mental improvement. if, in
deed, it has that ambition. Civiliza-
ton, we regret to say, has not
advanced far enough at The present
. age to provide Kindergartens for in
FAINT turkeys, and so this friend of ours
reached the balmv days of early
spring without an idea in its little
noddle other than filling its little gullet
: with the fattest worms and the biggest
grains of corn as often as it had
chance. By this time, however, its
angular frame-and all turkeys are
angular, we may remark, as every am
ateur carver has observed, at some
time or another, to his discontinue
had filled out into something like pro.
.. portions, and its scrawny wings had
covered themselves with feathers
broad and long, until at last it took
its place among the elders, very much
as boys drift into manhood. acquire
mustaches and right to vote-quite
as a matter of course.
AS spring passed into summer, this
turkey of ours began to take notice of
its surroundings. 1t learned to know
1the gray-haired old farmer who owned
the place from the tall and broad
shOuldered friedman, and the bent
and angular farmers wife from her
pretty, plump, red-cheeked daughter.
1t knew the latter particularly well,
because it was she who fed it when it
was too young to feed itself. 1t liked
her, too, this friend of ours-for graft
tude is not alone confined to children
and story y-books-and when hand
some young man from the city chanced
to come that way one day, and rent a
room in the. old farmhouse for a week.
while he tished the neighboring
streams, it noticed that, too. This,
however, was not all that was noticed
by our observing little friend. 1t no.
ticed also that the young man from the
city paid much more attention to the
pretty daughter than he did to the fish
ing. and that she. in turn, gave him more
of her time than she did the turkeys.
When this week was over another one
was begun, and another and yet an
other. until September found the young
city-man still at the farmhouse, and
thef friendship between the young
couple had grown with each day. So
our little friend was not surprised, one
pleasant evening, to hear from its perch
on the lower limb of the old apple tree a
conversation which was not intended
even for turkeys ears Underthe tree,
close to its rugged bark, was a rustic
seat. On this seat were the lovers, for
such they had grown to be.
'.Mary," said the city-man, shall /
speak to your father?"
.'Yes, dear replied the pretty
daughter.
"When?''
whenever you please
1t is true that this was not much to
hear; but, such as it was, it gave our
tender-hearted turkey a strange feeling
of pain, in the expression of which it
made such a commotion that further
conversation was at an end.
The next day our friend contided its
suspicious to a shrewd old turkey-cock
"a patriarchal fowl-who listened to
the tale with grave interest.
"What does it meanp" asked the
turkey
1T means, replied the cock, signiti-
cantly, "that we had better make our
selves scarce for awhile, particularly
tha p1unneSt Of us. / know what wed. |
dlngs are, and feasting, and ! do not