76 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 



with them it means chippen-birds and shite-pokes ; may 

 be such trash live in my diggins, but I arn't noticed 

 them yet : a bird anyway is too triflinof. I never did 

 shoot at but one, and I'd never forgiven myself for that, 

 had it weighed less than forty pounds. I wouldn't 

 draw a rifle on any thing less heavy than that; and 

 when I meet with another wild turkey of the same size, 

 I will drap him." 



" A wild turkey weighing forty pounds ! " exclaimed 

 twenty voices in the cabin at once. 



" Yes, strangers, and wasn't it a whopper ? You 

 see, the thing was so fat that it couldn't fly far ; and 

 when he fell out of the tree, after I shot him, on striking 

 the ground he bust open behind, and the way the pound 

 gobs of tallow rolled out of the opening was perfectly 

 beautiful." 



'' Where did all that happen? " asked a cynical-look- 

 ing Hoosier. 



" Happen ! happened in Arkansaw : where else 

 could it have happened, but in the creation State, the 

 finishingup country — a State where the sile runs down 

 to the centre of the 'arth, and government gives you a 

 title to every inch of it ? Then its airs — ^just breathe 

 them, and they will make you snort like a horse. It's 

 a State without a fault, it is." 



" Excepting mosquitoes," cried the Hoosier. 

 " Well, stranger, except them ; for it ar a fact that 

 tiiey aro rather monnous, and do push tliemselves in 



