"There"s no use of my singing a dawn song beneath Farmer Green"s window any more," Rusty Wren grumbled. "The terrible squalls of this new bird will disturb everybody in the valley."
"Don"t be silly!" said Mrs. Wren. "Don"t be silly like Turkey Proudfoot.
He"s making himself miserable because the Peac.o.c.k has a tail that sticks up higher than his. How absurd," she cried, "to be proud like Turkey Proudfoot, just because your tail happens to stick up in the air. Why, yours and mine stick up. But we don"t go around boasting about them. And if somebody else has a stickier-up tail, why worry about it? And if somebody else with a louder voice can wake Farmer Green better than you can, why worry about that? Let the Peac.o.c.k scream if he wants to!"
"And _I_--" cried Turkey Proudfoot, who had been standing beneath the tree where Mr. and Mrs. Wren were talking--"_I_ say, let the Peac.o.c.k parade in the front yard if he wants to. I certainly shan"t visit him there. I"ll parade behind the farmhouse."
When Turkey Proudfoot first spoke up like that, Rusty Wren and his wife gave each other an uneasy look. They had expected him to be angry. And now, with an air of great relief, Mrs. Wren exclaimed:
"I apologize to you, Mr. Turkey Proudfoot. You"re not as silly as I supposed. You"re not as vain as I thought you were. I begin to think we"ve been mistaken about you all these years."
"You certainly have been," Turkey Proudfoot declared. "I"m not vain at all and I"m glad I haven"t the Peac.o.c.k"s horrid, harsh voice. Mine is much more beautiful than his. And n.o.body can deny it."
"_Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!_"
XVI
DRUMMING ON A LOG
Turkey Proudfoot was not always content to stay in the farmyard.
Although Farmer Green fed him well, he liked to range over the fields in search of extra tidbits, such as grain, seeds and insects. Sometimes he wandered even as far as the pasture. And one day he strayed into the edge of the woods beyond the pasture fence.
There he discovered a beech tree. And Turkey Proudfoot was enjoying the nuts that he found on the ground beneath it when all at once a _thump-thump-thump_ startled him. He raised his head and listened. The thumping sound came faster and faster, then died away in a rumble.
"Ho! It"s only Johnnie Green drumming. Probably his mother wouldn"t let him drum near the farmhouse, so he came to the woods where she couldn"t hear him."
Turkey Proudfoot paid no more heed to the drumming, which rolled through the woods now and then. He went on with his search for beechnuts. But at last a thought popped into his head. "Johnnie Green must be eating most of the time, or he"d drum oftener," Turkey Proudfoot muttered. "He must have found a beech tree."
Soon Turkey Proudfoot decided to join Johnnie Green. He hoped that beechnuts were more plentiful beneath Johnnie"s tree. So Turkey Proudfoot picked his way slowly through the underbrush. And guided by the _thump-thump-thump_ which once in a while boomed upon his ears, at last Turkey Proudfoot came into a little clearing.
There on a log sat a speckly, feathered, short-necked gentleman with a tail spread in much the fashion in which Turkey Proudfoot so often carried his own.
Turkey Proudfoot drew back behind a bush, out of sight.
"I"ll show that bird a tail that _is_ a tail," he muttered to himself.
So he spread his tail and then stepped proudly forth. A dry twig snapped beneath his weight. At that sound the stranger on the log turned his head quickly. Just for an instant there was an eager look on his face.
But when he beheld Turkey Proudfoot it changed to one of disappointment.
"Who are you?" the stranger asked in none too pleasant a tone.
"I"m Turkey Proudfoot," said the ruler of the farmyard. "I live down the hill at Farmer Green"s place."
"Then you"d better go home where you belong," said the stranger on the log. "I was expecting some one. I"ve been drumming for a friend. And when I heard you step on that dry twig I thought she"d come. I had my tail spread in her honor."
"Drum again!" Turkey Proudfoot ordered. "Call your friend at once and I"ll show her a tail that is a tail. Yours is no bigger than Mrs.
Green"s fan."
The stranger made no move to obey. He appeared somewhat sulky.
"What"s your name?" Turkey Proudfoot demanded.
"I"m Mr. Grouse," the stranger snapped out. "I supposed everybody in Pleasant Valley knew me. My drumming is famous."
"Indeed!" said Turkey Proudfoot. "I thought it was Johnnie Green making that noise."
"No wonder!" Mr. Grouse sniffed. "You"re only a barnyard fowl. You can"t be expected to know anything about us game birds."
XVII
A GAME BIRD
Mr. Grouse moved back and forth upon his log in the clearing in the woods. And casting a withering glance at Turkey Proudfoot, he said, "It"s plain that you don"t know what a game bird is. Men--and boys, too--come into the woods with guns to hunt us. And we make game of them by rising swiftly with a loud _whir_ and flying off before they have time to shoot us."
Turkey Proudfoot gaped at Mr. Grouse.
"Don"t they ever hit you?" he faltered.
"They"ve never shot me," said Mr. Grouse. "Once a hunter knocked out one of my tail feathers. But that was only an accident."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Turkey Proudfoot Has a Chat with Mr. Grouse. (_Page_ 80)]
"I shouldn"t care to be a game bird," Turkey Proudfoot remarked. "I"m sure it"s much safer living at the farmyard."
Mr. Grouse gave him an odd look. One winter when food was scarce in the woods he had flown down to the farmyard. And he remembered seeing turkey feathers scattered about the chopping block near the woodpile.
"How do you usually spend the holidays?" he asked.
"Last Fourth of July I went up in the haymow and kept out of sight all day," said Turkey Proudfoot. "I don"t like firecrackers."
Mr. Grouse nodded his head.
"I don"t blame you for that," he observed. "Firecrackers sound too much like guns.... But I wasn"t thinking of the Fourth of July," he went on.
"When I asked how you spent the holidays I was thinking more of those to come. Now, Thanksgiving Day isn"t a long way off. Have you made any plans for that?"
When he mentioned Thanksgiving Day Turkey Proudfoot gave a sudden start.
"For goodness" sake, don"t speak of that now!" he cried. "I came to the woods to enjoy myself. And now you"re trying to spoil my good time."
Mr. Grouse could see that Turkey Proudfoot was angry. And being rather peppery himself, he was tempted to say something sharp--something about _axes_, which are always sharp unless they"re dull. But Mr. Grouse managed to control his temper. After all, he thought, it was no wonder that Turkey Proudfoot didn"t want to hear about Thanksgiving Day.
"Pardon me!" said Mr. Grouse. "I only brought up this matter in a cousinly kind of way."