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.

XXII

CRANBERRY SAUCE

"Ho, hum!" old Mr. Crow yawned. He had stoppe