k
had once--only once--but then, perhaps it would be just as well not to
tell what the other fowls had heard about their family quarrel, for,
after all, it did not come very straight, the Pigs having told the
Geese, and the Geese telling the Ducks, and the Ducks just mentioning it
to the Peacock, and the Peacock having spoken of it to the Dorking Hen.

It was now late in the fall, and all the Turkeys went walking together
again. One would think that, after being separated from the rest all
summer and part of the spring, the Gobbler would have been very polite
when he joined them, but no; he was more quick-tempered than ever. He
was not fond of young Turkeys, and their constant chattering annoyed
him. "Can't you find some way to keep those children quiet?" he would
say, and made such a fuss that the Hen Turkeys called them aside and
tried to amuse them for a while.

Hen Turkeys are most loving mothers, and in the early spring first one
and then another had stolen away to lay and hatch her eggs. If a Hen
Turkey wanted a chance to lay an egg at this season, she watched the
Gobbler and left the flock when his back was turned. As she came near
her nest, she would stop and look around to make sure he did not see
where it was. She knew that the Gobbler did not like to have her raise
young Turkeys, and that if he could find the nest, he would break every
egg in it. After she had laid her egg, she would wander back in a
careless way, quite as though she had only been to the watering-trough
for a drink.

Once the Hen Turkeys had talked about this when the Gobbler could not
hear. "It doesn't seem right not to tell him," the youngest had said.

"Well, my dear," said another, "it is the only way we can do, if we want
to save our eggs and raise our children. Gobblers always act in that
way."

"Are you sure?" said the young Hen Turkey.

"Sure!" was the answer. "You wouldn't be here to-day if your mother
hadn't done as we do."

So the youngest Hen Turkey had changed her mind and hidden her eggs like
the rest, for, in spite of aching legs and all that is hard in hatching
eggs, Hen Turkeys always want to raise broods in the springtime. When
one of them had laid as many eggs as she wanted to hatch, she began
sitting on them, and would not walk with the flock at all. One by one
the Hen Turkeys had done this until the Gobbler was left quite alone. He
did not like it at all, and wanted more than ever to find and break the
eggs. When