Christmas Every Day | Page 7

could say was, "Well, people have got reason, anyway, and turkeys have only got instinct; so there!"
"You'd better look out," says the old hen-turkey; and all the little turkey chicks got so mad they just hopped, and the oldest little he-turkey, that was just beginning to be a gobbler, he dropped his wings and spread his tail just like his father, and walked round the other little girl till it was perfectly frightful.
"I should think they would 'a' been ashamed."
Well, perhaps old First Premium was a little; because he stopped them. "My dear," he says to the old hen-turkey, and chick-chickledren, "you forget yourselves; you should have a little consideration. Perhaps you wouldn't behave much better yourselves if you were just going to be eaten."
And they all began to scream and to cry, "We've been eaten, and we're nothing but turkey ghosts."
"There, now, papa," says the little girl, sitting up straight, so as to argue better, "I knew it wasn't true, all along. How could turkeys have ghosts if they don't have souls, I should like to know?"
"Oh, easily," said the papa.
"Tell how," said the little girl.
"Now look here," said the papa, "are you telling this story, or am I?"
"You are," said the little girl, and she cuddled down again. "Go on."
"Well, then, don't you interrupt. Where was I? Oh yes."
Well, he couldn't do anything with them, old First Premium couldn't. They acted perfectly ridiculous, and one little brat of a spiteful little chick piped out, "I speak for a drumstick, ma!" and then they all began: "I want a wing, ma!" and "I'm going to have the wish-bone!" and "I shall have just as much stuffing as ever I please, shan't I, ma?" till the other little girl was perfectly disgusted with them; she thought they oughtn't to say it before her, anyway; but she had hardly thought this before they all screamed out, "They used to say it before us," and then she didn't know what to say, because she knew how people talked before animals.
"I don't believe I ever did," said the little girl. "Go on."
Well, old First Premium tried to quiet them again, and when he couldn't he apologized to the other little girl so nicely that she began to like him. He said they didn't mean any harm by it; they were just excited, and chickledren would be chickledren.
"Yes," said the other little girl, "but I think you might take some older person to begin with. It's a perfect shame to begin with a little girl."
"Begin!" says old First Premium. "Do you think we're just beginning? Why, when do you think it is?"
"The night after Thanksgiving."
"What year?"
"1886."
They all gave a perfect screech. "Why, it's Christmas Eve, 1900, and every one of your friends has been eaten up long ago," says old First Premium, and he began to cry over her, and the old hen-turkey and the little turkey chicks began to wipe their eyes on the backs of their wings.
"I don't think they were very neat," said the little girl.
Well, they were kind-hearted, anyway, and they felt sorry for the other little girl. And she began to think she had made some little impression on them, when she noticed the old hen-turkey beginning to untie her bonnet strings, and the turkey chicks began to spread round her in a circle, with the points of their wings touching, so that she couldn't get out, and they commenced dancing and singing, and after a while that little he-turkey says, "Who's it?" and the other little girl, she didn't know why, says, "I'm it," and old First Premium says, "Do you promise?" and the other little girl says, "Yes, I promise," and she knew she was promising, if they would let her go, that people should never eat turkeys any more. And the moon began to shine brighter and brighter through the turkeys, and pretty soon it was the sun, and then it was not the turkeys, but the window-curtains--it was one of those old farm-houses where they don't have blinds--and the other little girl--
"Woke up!" shouted the little girl. "There now, papa, what did I tell you? I knew it was a dream all along."
"No, she didn't," said the papa; "and it wasn't a dream."
"What was it, then?"
"It was a--trance."
The little girl turned round, and knelt in her papa's lap, so as to take him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking. That made him promise to be good, pretty quick, and, "Very well, then," says the little girl; "if it wasn't a dream, you've got to prove it."
"But how can I prove it?" says the papa.
"By going on with the story," says the little girl, and she cuddled down again.
"Oh, well, that's easy enough."
As soon as it was light in the room, the other