The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-06-09
PeTclilg Wild Turkeys.
BY NJ. NJ. FOLSOM.

Down in the glorious Southern woods is a great place for game of all kinds, and there is no variety that gives keener sport to the hunter, or furnishes more delicious treat when killed than the wild turkey.
 Cautious and extremely wary, the old gobbler will scent the hunter afar of, and lodging into patch of pal metto or scrub oaks, he is off and away like the wind, leaving no trace behind him, and, as he uses feet and wings with equal celerity, it is a pretty rough job to bag the bearded gohbler on his native heath.
 A tavorite method of hunting them is by what is known as "perching." ;" The hunters call it "settin'" them, in the common suggestive dialect of the country. Late in the afternoon the hunter hears flock in some place where the birds are hard to come at, and, guided by the clucking of the hens and young gobblers, he steals cautiously along, keeping as near as possible, until, as the deepening shad- ows darken to dusky solitudes, the turkeys cast about for some place to roost. With their usual cunning, they frequently select spot where large trees grow above the water, and, perch ing high among the branches, they are as safe as some old feudal baron who has raised the drawbridge, dropped the portcullis, and filled the deep moat around his castle with water from the river hard by.
 But this is not always the case, for it frequently happens that the birds perch in trees in the dry portions of the swamp, as at Warst, where there is only little marsh. With the earli- est peep of the dawn the hunter is at his post, near the perching place, creeping through the underbrush as noiselessly as panther, and peering through the twisted branches of many a moss covered live-oak and gum tree. Presently there is quick, sharp +'cluck" of interrogative caution, and unless the hunter be very careful there is just such wild Tapping of wings and general commotion as you never heard before the hunter blazes away at random, ten to one, and then walks briskly homeward, so yexed and mor- tified that he does not even stop to re- load his rife.
 "I tell you," remarked Capt. Sterne, as we sat on log resting after 8 fatiguing tramp through the woods ~I jes' tell you, ef ther's one thing harder than another, hits to fool a turkeys -gobbler after he has cut his beard. Sometimes the feller that's a'ter i'm gifts mortally sold, but the gobbler mighty sildom.
 "Not long Ego me 'n' Bill Spikes wer' huntin' one ethenin', an jest afore dark we come to whar Boggy Branch makes inter the big slough, what's a part of the Dead River, an says l, Bill, let's set some turkeys, hey"
 "'All right sezee, 'ther's jest as good place right in 'twixt the two runs as heart could wish for.'
 "So we siperated, one gwine down the slough, and t'other down the Dead River, 'greein' to meet at pint 'bout half mile below. Hit was one O them purity ethenin's in the fall O the year, when the sunshine looks brown as it lays across the long grass, an the jay birds is all tryin' to see who kin kick up the biggest racket; an the cat squirrels set an dare you to shoot, jist beca'se the dinged little critters knows you're a'ter turkeys.
 "I forgot what I was a'ter in tryin' to figger out how, eff ten bundles of fodder out of a load weighed nine- teen pounds, how much would the 437 whut wus in the waggin come to at sixt'-five cents hundred. The thing 'ad ben aworryiR me heap, be- ca'se me an Bill had been on 6 trade which we had jes closed, an in it wus the fodder, an wanted dev'lish bad to know whuther I cheated or got cheated or wus bout eben.
 "Well, sir, when got to the pint who should see but Bill, asettin' on the An1-bar, maxim marks in the and.
 "sHello,' said l, Bill, you beat me. Bin sorter jumped . ef he hadn't seed me afore, am lowed: 'Yes, I come mighty nigh parsin' the place, l wus . studyin' so hard. See how Pve been . figgerin'? You see, that ole SOW let you have in the trade has got seben pigs, an five un' lem air sow-pigs. Now, . good breeder lack that ole sow'il bring two filters O pigs year, an spozen' every one O them pigs lives am does we'll, in three yearS time there'n be hogs 'nough fo'm that one ole SOW to stock the whole face O the yeath am the Okeefenokee swamp to ho0f l, q