moved.

At first there was a most joyful look on Master Meadow Mouse's face. But it faded instantly into one of doubt and dismay. To tell the truth, Master Meadow Mouse hadn't expected Turkey Proudfoot to turn around and catch him right in his mimicking act.

"Ah, ha!" cried Turkey Proudfoot. "So it's you that they're laughing at, eh?"

Master Meadow Mouse was so upset that he murmured faintly, "Yes, it's me."

p. 32

"Well, I don't blame them," said Turkey Proudfoot. "You certainly look very queer. Why are you holding your foot off the ground like that?"

"I was in the midst of taking a step when you turned around and startled me," Master Meadow Mouse explained. "And I don't know whether to set my foot down ahead of me, or to put it behind me."

"Don't be alarmed!" Turkey Proudfoot said. "I never fight folks of your size. You're too little for me to pay much attention to. I must say, however, that you have a very odd way of walking."

By this time Master Meadow Mouse had recovered from his surprise and wasn't afraid in the least. Now he laughed heartily.

"I was walking the way you walk," he cried.

"Oh, no!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed.p. 33 "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?"

p. 34

"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.

p. 35

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 Proudfootp. 36 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 nothingp. 37 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.

p. 38

"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.

p. 39

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 gobblingp. 40 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 looked up at the roof of the barn; but there was no one there except the gilded rooster that told which way the wind blew. He looked up at the roof of the farmhouse.

"You don't suppose that fellow's hiding in the chimney, do you?" he asked.

"No doubt he is," said the rooster. "If I were you I'd fly up there and catch him."

"The roof's high for one of my weight to fly to," Turkey Proudfoot remarked.

"Still, I could flap up to the top of the woodshed and get to the roof of the house from there.... I'll take a look and see how high the house seems when I'm near it."

Polly Imitates Turkey Proudfoot's Gobble

(Page 42)

p. 41

To the rooster's delight, Turkey Proudfoot started towards the house. The rooster promptly called to all the hens to "come quick," because Turkey Proudfoot was going to fly to the roof of the farmhouse. "I hope he won't