256 ' The Turkey Family 



cleaning up the new acres. The wild turkey is a 

 lover of the still — not the " still " of quite a few 

 of his human, but half-wild neighbors, but the 

 sweet God-given still of an undisturbed region. 



The first crash of villanous saltpetre which 

 shattered the solemn silence of those ancient 

 woods, was the warning of the doom to follow. 

 The novel sound of axes pecking virgin wood, 

 the dull, splintering roar of the earthward tree, 

 the " heave-ho ! " of the toiling fathers, sweating 

 at wall of rude hut and arrow-proof barricade, 

 meant more to strutting gobbler and demure hen 

 than their untrained brains were capable of grasp- 

 ing. If they imagined that the toiler and the 

 " turk " would lie down together side by side, 

 they were right — but, presumably, they did not 

 realize which side the turkey would occupy. 



Then they were easy game, which any Puritan 

 prowler could knock over on the ground, or perch, 

 with a bell-mouth of antique model. But as they 

 had more extensive dealings with the prayerful 

 Pilgrims, they rapidly acquired sense ; in this 

 respect, to my notion, being considerably in 

 advance of that other game — the American 

 Indian. Anyway the turkey presently made the 

 useful discovery that about one hundred yards 

 was the proper distance at which to keep a white 

 man ; and he has ever since insisted upon the 

 observance of this trifling matter of etiquette — 



