208 GAME-BIRDS AT HOME. 



your soul that the gobbler is himself going to 

 take a hand in the morning's program. The 

 heavy reveille of the big pileated woodpecker on 

 the storm-scarred head of some patriarch of the 

 forest only intensifies this loneliness, and the far- 

 off tinkle of the bell on some settler's cow — the 

 only sound of man that mars the silence of the 

 virgin forest — makes it still more lonely, as the 

 painful truth steals upon you that you are 

 mightily alone. 



Late in summer, when the young are almost 

 full grown and you can hunt turkeys with a dog, 

 what a thrill fresh scratchings sent through you, 

 and how you studied the tracks the big birds had 

 left in the moist earth ! Fragrance from clusters 

 of purpling fox-grapes made the woods more 

 suggestive of game than ever, and the jar of 

 leaves beneath the spring of the squirrel brought 

 the gun with convulsive jerk half off your 

 shoulder. Do you remember how, down in the 

 edge of the dark timber of the river-bottom 

 where ivy was reddening over the moss-covered 

 stump, and trumpet-vines yellowing over the 

 leaning basswood, everything whispered of — 

 turkey? And what a moment was that when 



