The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-12-12
they have alighted they call each other

Johnny lay quiet awhile and then he
gave the t~urkey-call, cautiously. He
waited, and then repeated it. There
was no answer till the fourth call, and
then he heard a faint response. He
waited a moment and called again.
Soon there was a turkeys call nearer
and louder. The boy kept on calling,
and was answered each time, but the
answering turkey seemed TO be exceed
ingly wary, and was moving in a wide
circle around the blind where Johnny
lay.
The cautious movements of the tur-
key led the boy to believe that it was
the old gobbler, because an ordinary
turkey would have walked straight to
the blind. The turkey kept circling
around and calling, but getting nearer,
aud at last the excited boy, lying at
full length, with face down and his gun
at hand, ready cooked, could hear the
footsteps of the turkey on the lead
leaves. Johnny strained his eyes in
the darkness to see, but the turkey got
within twenty feet of him before he
saw him outlined dimly against a back
ground of a hazel bush. Johnny drop
ped his bone call and raised the gun.
AS he did SO the turkey took fright.
The boy pulled one trigger and then
the other, firing both barrels, and the
fluttering among the leaves in the dark
ness told him he had struck the bird.
He ran out, and clutching the dying
turkey by the feet, tried to lift him
clear of the ground. He could not,
and to his great joy he saw it was the
old gobbler, sure enough.
The next morning, at daylight, as
DR.. Meng was making a fire in the
tall, tobacco-stained cannon stove in
his drug store, he heard a horse coming
up the road. He stepped to the door
to empty the ash-pan, and saw two
boys riding one behind the other. The
good old doctor stared harder, and
saw that Johnny Matthews was in
front, with such an enormous turkey
ocross the horses neck that its toes
almost touched the ground on n
side, while its bill almost reached the
road on the other. When DR.. Meng
saw the long black beard of the turkey
huttering in the wind, the ash-pan
dropped from his fingers and clattered
on the plank doorstep. Without speak
ing he took the long beard of the old
gobbler in his hand and stroked it as
he said:
ssBoys, where under the canopy did
you git that tarnal critterP" 1t took
the boys a half hour to tell him the
story, and by that time the news had
spread and the whole village was out
TO see. The boys on horseback led a
triumptal procession up the street to
Johnny's bone. Johnny's father was
so proud of what his boy had done
that he Rugged him in the presence of
the crowd, and invited the whole town
to dinner. But only the old hunters
went, and when the famous old COB
bier was put On the table, smoking
hot, and the carving begun, it was
found that he was the toughest turkey
any of them had ever tried to eat.
The dinner, after all, would nave beer
a failure if Mrs. Mathews, foreseeing
that very thing, had not roasted two
tender hen turkeys to flank bim on
zach side. Uncle Nels Fox, who was
at that historic dinner, has said many
times since that he would give the best
COW on his farm If some one had only
thought to preserve the skeleton of the
old gobbler. His wishbone, which is
almost as large as a horseshoe, hangs
today over tine prescription case Of O
drug store in the town of Dover.