The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot Part 10

"Don't hurry!" Turkey Proudfoot begged him. "I'm beginning to enjoy your company--though I can't exactly say why. And I'd like to gabble with you for an hour or two. I don't see what makes me so wakeful."

Just then a familiar sound greeted Turkey Proudfoot's ears. It was a crow. It was the rooster's crow, way down at the farmyard.

"Why, it's almost dawn!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "I didn't know the night was so nearly gone. It's no wonder I couldn't sleep. The dawn of another day always makes one wide awake."

"It always makes one sleepy, you mean," Simon Screecher corrected him.

Now, Turkey Proudfoot always grew angry when anybody corrected him in any way. And he flew into a rage.

"Go away! Go home!" he spluttered. "I don't enjoy your company."

Simon Screecher started homewards at once.

"Farmyard manners!" he muttered. "I declare, I wish Cousin Solomon hadn't eaten those two mice and those three frogs and those four spiders and those five gra.s.shoppers to-night. When he's well fed he's always good-natured. If he had been hungry he'd have been in a terrible temper.

And he'd have fought this Turkey bird until there was nothing left of him but his tail feathers."

Turkey Proudfoot never knew what a narrow escape he had. As soon as it began to grow light he dropped down out of the oak tree and hurried home, for he didn't want to miss the breakfast that Farmer Green always gave him.

Along in the fall, breakfasts always seemed to be bigger.

XXII

CRANBERRY SAUCE

"Ho, hum!" old Mr. Crow yawned. He had stopped to talk with Turkey Proudfoot in the cornfield. It was fall; and the shocks of corn stood on every hand like great fat scarecrows, with fat yellow pumpkins lying at their feet, as if the scarecrows' heads had fallen off.

Mr. Crow always yawned a good deal when he chatted with Turkey Proudfoot and he wasn't always as careful as he might have been about covering up his yawns. Somehow Mr. Crow found Turkey Proudfoot dull company. Turkey Proudfoot had never been off the farm. On the other hand, old Mr. Crow was a great traveller. In his younger days he used to spend every winter in the South. And though he felt that the long journey had become too hard for him now, he thought nothing of flying around Blue Mountain and up and down Pleasant Valley.

As a result of his wanderings Mr. Crow had learned many things. And as a result of his staying at home, Turkey Proudfoot had learned little or nothing. Often Turkey Proudfoot complained to Mr. Crow that he couldn't even understand what Mr. Crow was talking about. But on this occasion Mr. Crow mentioned something that made him shudder.

"Ho, hum!" Mr. Crow yawned again. "My appet.i.te isn't what it used to be.

I believe I need to eat something tart. So I think I'll go over to the cranberry bog and pick a few cranberries. Why don't you come along with me?"

"Ugh!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "Cranberries! I can't stand even the mention of them."

"Ha!" Mr. Crow murmured to himself. "I've waked him up at last. I thought that would fetch him." And to Turkey Proudfoot he said, "Do you mean to tell me that you don't like cranberries? Why, I've always heard Turkey and cranberry sauce mentioned together."

"Ah!" said Turkey Proudfoot. "I've no doubt you've heard them spoken of only too often. But that's no reason why I should be fond of cranberry sauce. To tell the truth, all my life I've schemed to keep away from it."

"Then you don't care for the sharp taste of cranberries," said Mr. Crow.

"I've never eaten any," Turkey Proudfoot told him. "I'm sure I couldn't eat any if I wanted to. I believe the sight of them would take my appet.i.te away."

Old Mr. Crow shook his head. And he leaned over to pick up a stray kernel of corn.

"Don't take that!" Turkey Proudfoot warned him. "I've had my eye on that kernel. I was going to eat it as soon as you went away."

Old Mr. Crow bolted the kernel of corn in a twinkling.

"You forget that you're not in the farmyard," he said boldly. "You can't treat me as if I were a Hen." And he chuckled--in a croaking sort of fas.h.i.+on.

Turkey Proudfoot glared at him. He knew that it was useless to rush at Mr. Crow. The old gentleman would only rise into the air and sail away with a loud haw-haw.

Now, Mr. Crow was a famous tease. He dearly loved to annoy others. And he gave Turkey Proudfoot a sly glance.

"Ouch!" he exclaimed. "I have a twinge of rheumatism."

"Where is your pain?" asked Turkey Proudfoot.

"In one of my drumsticks," said old Mr. Crow promptly, with a spluttering cough, to keep from laughing.

Turkey Proudfoot was furious.

"Cranberry sauce and drumsticks!" he exclaimed. "You do choose the most painful things to talk about."

"I was only trying to be polite," Mr. Crow told him. "You're always complaining that I don't talk about matters you can understand."

"I understand these only too well--" Turkey Proudfoot said--"especially at this season of the year!"

XXIII

VACATION TIME

It was well along in November. And Turkey Proudfoot was feeling fidgetty. Whenever Farmer Green or the hired man stepped into the yard, he started up with a wild look in his eye.

Turkey Proudfoot was no longer roosting at night in the tree near the farmhouse.

With the coming of cold weather he had been glad enough to roost under a shed beside the barn.

Ever since the winter before, Turkey Proudfoot had enjoyed sound sleeps at night. But for weeks now he had often waked up in the middle of the night and found himself all a-s.h.i.+ver.

"It's the fault of that horrid old Mr. Crow," Turkey Proudfoot complained to old dog Spot one day. "He would talk about cranberry sauce and drumsticks. And of course a person can't sleep well with such things on his mind."

Old dog Spot nodded.

"Isn't it about time for you to go on your yearly vacation?" he inquired.

"Don't talk so loud!" Turkey Proudfoot hissed. And he took a quick glance all around. Then he said to old dog Spot, in almost a whisper, "To-morrow morning I'll be missing. Now, don't tell anybody!"

"Certainly not!" Spot promised. "I'm glad you're going away for a little change. I've thought lately that you were getting more peevish and quarrelsome than ever."