The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-22
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555.''Tl.URkEYLESS.
.THHNhS GIVENG..

Again the time Of Thanksgiving ap-
proaches and the tide of prosperous
cheer draws near. The president has
issued a proclamation, setting aside
Thursday, Nov. 26, as the day Of annual
rejoicing. And at the tolling of the
proclamation bell every housewife now,
as in the good old colony days, begins
to plan for the approaching feast.
Now the grocers and the butchers be-
gin to fill their stalls with the choice
products of the market. With the first
nipping blast of winter, with the first
fall of snow and the dying gasps of
Indian summer, the modern housewife
clad in sealskin and silk, makes her
way to the Haymarket square and
South Water street, her fat purse in
hand, and demands quotations on the
market. My lady is algeady busy in
the street and maFketsl feeling the
breast bone of fowls a1fd commenting
on their weight and general prosperity
of look. All day long, sand especially
in the evening at g. when the crowds
are pouring down the busy thorough
fares, the cheerful Alight of gasoline
torches flare and sing il the chill air
and proclaim to the passing crowd the
existence of heaped-up stalls of game
and fowl. an
The season is oneiof great promise
and most extraordinary abundance.
Game of all kinds from the North,
West and South comes in daily by the
carload. Some of the largest kills that
have ever been shipped to market are
daily brought into the street and
pegged up for, sale.
The Thanksgiving poet has for 200
years babbled in verse over the tooth
some turkey. Writers have filled
whole pages in eulogy Of the american
bird, one which bade fair some time
ago to supplant the eagle from his
eerie in our national cliffs The turkey.
they said, was a bird whose meat riv-
aled the tongue of the nightingale, or
such morsels as robins eggs. 1t was a
bird whose very plumage in its deep.
rich browns marked the favoritism of
nature; it was a bird whose very strut
proclaimed it a symbol of proud in
dependence. 1t all began in the days
of wild turkeydom, when the birds were
as plentiful in the woods as jack rab-
bits, and when g gobbler- would tip
the scales at sixty-five pounds or more.
The early writers set the fashion. It
became tradition, this turkey renown.
Later writer's followed On account of
it's prestige, and all the. while, the orig
inal, toothsome, wild turkey himself
gradually disappeared fr8m the face of
the earth, to be Superseded by only a
weak and miserable imitation the do
nestle turkey, his alf7ffother.~-
In the olden time fheb taste of the
wild turkey or goose warranted the alb
solute tyranny of their, sway, when,
with great pumpkin pies. rich : fruit
buildings, the tickletootbpastry, maple
sugar and the wild fruits of the hedge
bush, they sat in SOLEMN roast array
in the very center of a jeyial domestic
gathering. But times have changed
And on feast days ting taste reyerts al
ways to savage longngN Consequent
ly the wild life Of the woods and
marshes, with it's indescribable sweet
ness and 1usciousness, is most In de-
mand by those Of discriminating pal
ates.
The present season will see the down.
fall of the turkey He is becoming
too decidedly commonplace. In his
place the wild duck. perhaps, will; gain
supremacy. But the popular taste
leans kindly toward such dainties as
the stubble and the meadow afford, the
quail. the woodcock. the prairie chick
en- and the rabbit. The coming Thanks