The Tale of Turkey Proudfoot | Page 6

Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "No, indeed! You certainly
weren't." He didn't ask Master Meadow Mouse's pardon for
contradicting.
"I'd like to know why I wasn't," Master Meadow Mouse replied
somewhat hotly. "I was strutting right behind you, all the way across
the yard. That's why everybody was giggling."
"It's no wonder they were poking fun at you," Turkey Proudfoot told
him. "You amused the neighbors because you thought you were
strutting, while you really weren't."
Master Meadow Mouse put his foot down on the ground. He was
puzzled.
"I don't know why I wasn't strutting," he retorted. "I was raising my
feet just as high as I could lift them."
"Ah, yes?" said Turkey Proudfoot. "But you forgot one thing."
"What was that?"
"You didn't spread your tail," Turkey Proudfoot explained. "And that's

half of strutting."
"I--I didn't know it," Master Meadow Mouse stammered. And then he
darted away, to hide in the grass beyond the fence.
He felt much ashamed to have made such a mistake.

VIII
HARD TO PLEASE
It was very hard to please Turkey Proudfoot. To be sure, he always
pleased himself. But nothing anyone else did seemed to suit him. And
there was one thing that always made him peevish. That was the
gobbling of the younger turkey cocks.
To anybody that wasn't a turkey, their voices sounded just as sweet as
Turkey Proudfoot's. But he claimed that there was something wrong
with all gobbles except his own. Either they were too loud or too soft,
too high or too low, too long or too short. And whenever a young cock
gobbled in his hearing Turkey Proudfoot was sure to rush up to him
and order him to keep still, for pity's sake!
They usually obeyed him. Not only was Turkey Proudfoot the biggest
gobbler on the farm, but he had a fierce and lordly look about him. It
was a bold young turkey cock that dared defy him. Once in a while one
of them foolishly ventured to tell Turkey Proudfoot to mind his own
affairs. And then there was sure to be a fight--a quick, short, noisy fray
which ended always in the same fashion, with Turkey Proudfoot
chasing the young cock out of the farmyard.
Luckily for the youngsters, they could run faster than he could, for they
were not nearly as heavy.
Although Turkey Proudfoot didn't like to hear others gobble,
nevertheless he enjoyed the excuse for a fight that their gobbling gave
him. And when he had nothing more important to do he often stood still

and listened in the hope of hearing some upstart gobbler testing his
voice in a neighboring field. Newly grown cocks had to go a long way
off to be safe from Turkey Proudfoot's attacks.
One day in the middle of the summer the lord of the turkey flock was
feeding behind the barn when a loud gobble brought his head up with a
jerk.
"Ha!" Turkey Proudfoot cried. "That's somebody in the yard, around
the barn. He thinks I'm further away than this, or he'd never dare bawl
like that."
Turkey Proudfoot dashed around the barn at a swift trot. He was
surprised to see not a turkey cock in the farmyard. The rooster was
there, however. And Turkey Proudfoot eyed him sternly.
"You weren't trying to gobble a moment ago, were you?" he inquired.
"No, indeed!" said the rooster.
Turkey Proudfoot looked puzzled.
"Somebody gobbled," he declared. "I'm sure the noise came from this
yard. I was behind the barn when I heard it. And I hurried around the
corner at once."
"Maybe the person that gobbled ran around the other end of the barn, to
dodge you," the rooster suggested.
"I'll go and see," said Turkey Proudfoot. And he went back where he
came from.
He found nobody there. But that annoying gobble sounded again and
brought him back into the yard even faster than before. "Who did that?"
he squalled.
And somebody mocked him. Somebody repeated his question after him.
It was the same voice that had gobbled.

Turkey Proudfoot's rage was terrible to see.

IX
A STRANGE GOBBLE
"Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!"
Turkey Proudfoot stood in the farmyard and craned his neck in every
direction. That sound certainly was close at hand. Yet there wasn't a
turkey cock anywhere in sight, either on the ground or in the trees.
Just for a moment Turkey Proudfoot was worried.
"That wasn't my gobble, was it?" he asked the rooster. "If I gobbled, I
didn't know it."
"No! You didn't gobble," said the rooster, "though I must say that
gobbling sounded a good deal like yours."
"Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!"
"There it goes again!" cried Turkey Proudfoot. He was almost frantic.
"How can I fight that fellow if I can't see him?" he cried. He