The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot | Page 3

turned suddenly upon the startled rooster. "Look here!" cried Turkey Proudfoot. "It seems to me that you are giving me orders."
"Not at all!" the rooster assured him. "No, indeed! You're mistaken."
"Don't tell me I'm mistaken!" Turkey Proudfoot bawled in an angry, gobbly voice. "I'm never mistaken."
"Oh, certainly not!" said the rooster, who was bold as brass with most of his neighbors, but very mild with Turkey Proudfoot.
"Ha!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "You're getting yourself into a hole, sir! If I wasn't mistaken, then you were giving me orders. And in either case I should have to fight you."
This was too much for the rooster. He couldn't grasp what Turkey Proudfoot was saying. He only knew that things looked bad for him because Turkey Proudfoot was getting angrier every moment.
"I say!" the rooster cried. "Please don't waste your time on me just now, Mr. Turkey Proudfoot! Here come the six silly geese back from the duck pond. And I'd suggest that you speak to them at once and warn them not to enter the water again."
Turkey Proudfoot glanced across the farmyard. It was as the rooster had said. The six geese were waddling around a corner of the barn in single file. Somehow the sight of them made him so furious that he forgot he had been picking a quarrel with the rooster.
"I'll attend to them," he gobbled. "I'll fix them. They'll be so scared that they won't dare leave this yard again."
Turkey Proudfoot hurried towards the geese. He didn't take time to strut, but ran across the yard with long strides.
"Don't be silly geese!" Turkey Proudfoot called. "Keep away from the duck-pond! The weather's getting colder every day; and it makes me shiver to see you start off for a swim."
Turkey Proudfoot had supposed the six geese would be very meek and most eager to obey his commands. But to his great surprise they stopped, wheeled about so that they stood in a row, facing him, and hissed loudly.
It was not at all the sort of answer Turkey Proudfoot had expected.

IV
SCARING THE GEESE
The six geese stood in a row and hissed at Turkey Proudfoot. He was so astonished that any one of them could have knocked him over with a feather, almost. When he gobbled an order at them, telling them not to go swimming again, the geese hissed at him. That was just the same as telling him to keep still and mind his own affairs.
And Turkey Proudfoot was not used to answers like that.
The rooster had followed him across the farmyard in order to look on and listen while Turkey Proudfoot spoke to the geese. And his surprise was as great as Turkey Proudfoot's.
"Surely!" he muttered to Turkey Proudfoot, "you aren't going to let these geese go unpunished. They've insulted you."
"Ha! I thought they had," Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "And I'm glad to know that you agree with me. There's no doubt that they deserve a severe beating."
"Ah!" the rooster cried. "Now we'll see some fun."
"Yes!" said Turkey Proudfoot. "I expect we'll have a merry time." Still he made no move to attack the geese, who stood motionless, facing him like soldiers.
"Well!" the rooster said impatiently. "Aren't you going to punish these geese?"
"Certainly not!" Turkey Proudfoot cried. "Why did you tag after me across the yard if it wasn't to fight them? I've often heard that you were usually spoiling for a fight. So here's your chance!"
It was true, in a way, that the rooster was always ready to fight. Not one of the cockerels on the farm dared to speak to him. But he always took care to fight only such as he knew he could whip. Certainly he had no desire to fight six geese all by himself. He drew back a little and shook his head.
"This is not my quarrel," he declared.
"But you suggested it," Turkey Proudfoot reminded him. "And now I suggest that you take it up. I did my part. You must do yours."
A wild look came into the rooster's eyes. He wanted to run away. But he was a proud bird. He thought a great deal of the looks of things. And he didn't know just what to do.
Then something happened that suddenly made him act--and act quickly. The six geese all took one step forward.
The rooster turned tail and dashed around the barn, out of sight. And Turkey Proudfoot found himself facing the six geese, who soon took one more step towards him and hissed louder than ever.
He had never felt so ill at ease in all his life. But he remembered that he was the ruler of the turkey flock and the handsomest bird on the farm. It would never do to have it said that he ran away from six silly geese.
"I'll scare 'em," he thought. Thereupon he burst into a