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Tale of Turkey Proudfoot (version 2)

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<h2>XXI</h2> <h3>FARMYARD MANNERS</h3> "Oh, very well!" said Simon Screecher to Turkey Proudfoot. "I'll give my cousin your message. I'll tell him that you want him to meet you here in this clearing in the woods to-morrow night." So off Simon Screecher flew. He had not been gone long when a noisy "haw-haw-hoo-hoo" rolled and echoed through the woods. "He's laughing!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "Solomon Owl is laughing. I wonder what the joke is." He was so curious to know that he actually began to wish that Simon Screecher would hurry back. And after a little while he did. "What was the joke?" Turkey Proudfoot demanded. "I heard you cousin laughing." "Solomon Owl says that he doesn't care to meet you at all," Simon Screecher explained. "He says he has heard about you before and that you're a tough old bird." "I'm not!" Turkey shrieked. "I'm very tender—and I'm not ten years old." "Solomon Owl says he doesn't care to bother with any but the very youngest Turkeys." "Well," Turkey Proudfoot retorted, "no matter what he says, the joke's on him. I wasn't coming back here to-morrow night. I don't like sleeping in the woods and having my rest disturbed by hoots and whistles." "I suppose you don't," Simon Screecher admitted. "And I shouldn't care to try to sleep at the farmyard in the daytime and he waked by gobbles." "I wish you would come down to the farmyard," Turkey Proudfoot told him. "You'd drive old dog Spot half crazy with your whistling." Simon Screecher looked thoughtful. "No!" he said. "Farmer Green might drive me half crazy with his old shotgun." He yawned as he spoke. "I don't see what's making me so sleepy," he remarked. "I must be going home." "Don't hurry!" Turkey Proudfoot begged him. "I'm beginning to enjoy your company—though I can't exactly say why. And I'd like to gabble with you for an hour or two. I don't see what makes me so wakeful." Just then a familiar sound greeted Turkey Proudfoot's ears. It was a crow. It was the rooster's crow, way down at the farmyard. "Why, it's almost dawn!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "I didn't know the night was so nearly gone. It's no wonder I couldn't sleep. The dawn of another day always makes one wide awake." "It always makes one sleepy, you mean," Simon Screecher corrected him. Now, Turkey Proudfoot always grew angry when anybody corrected him in any way. And he flew into a rage. "Go away! Go home!" he spluttered. "I don't enjoy your company." Simon Screecher started homewards at once. "Farmyard manners!" he muttered. "I declare, I wish Cousin Solomon hadn't eaten those two mice and those three frogs and those four spiders and those five grasshoppers to-night. When he's well fed he's always good-natured. If he had been hungry he'd have been in a terrible temper. And he'd have fought this Turkey bird until there was nothing left of him but his tail feathers." Turkey Proudfoot never knew what a narrow escape he had. As soon as it began to grow light he dropped down out of the oak tree and hurried home, for he didn't want to miss the breakfast that Farmer Green always gave him. Along in the fall, breakfasts always seemed to be bigger. <hr class="chapter" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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