Spring was always an anxious time for the Hen Turkeys who wanted to
raise broods. Raising children is hard work and brings many anxieties
with it. The mother is so much afraid that they will take cold, or eat
too much, or not get enough to eat, or take something that is not good
for children. There is also the fear that they may be careless and
have some dreadful accident. And, worst of all, there is always the
fear that they may be naughty and grow up the wrong sort of people.
These cares all mothers have, but the Turkey mothers have another care
which is really very hard to stand, for the Gobblers do not like their
children and will try in every way to prevent the eggs from hatching.
If a Gobbler sees one of the Hen Turkeys laying an egg, he will break
the egg, and if he meets a flock of tiny Turkey Chicks he will peck
and hurt, perhaps even kill, all that he can of them. That is why the
Hen Turkeys on the farm had always been in the habit of stealing away
to lay their eggs in some secret place. One had even raised a fine
brood in the middle of a nettle-patch the year before. She had slipped
away from her friends and from the Gobbler day after day until she had
laid thirteen eggs, and then had begun sitting. She had to sit as long
as the Ducks do, and that is for twenty-eight days. You can imagine
how tired she became, and how many times she had kept very still,
hardly daring to move a feather, because she heard the Gobbler near
and feared he would find and break her precious eggs.
Now she began to feel like laying, and walked off to the nettle-patch
once more. She thought that having had such good luck there before was
a reason for trying it again. She had hardly laid her fine large egg
there when the Man came softly along and picked her up by the legs.
She flapped her wings and craned her head as far upwards as she could,
yet he did not loosen his hold on her. He carried her carefully, but
he carried her just the same.
When he reached the poultry-house, he put her in a pen by herself.
Then he went off to the farmhouse with her newly laid egg in his
pocket. You can imagine how sad she felt. If there is one thing that a
Hen Turkey likes better than taking long walks, it is raising Turkey
Chicks. In spite of the weariness and the anxiety, she is very fond of
it. And now this one found herself shut in and without her egg. It is
true that, besides the pen, she could go into the scratching-shed and
the big yard, yet even then there was the wired netting between her
and the great world, and her friends were on the other side of the
fence. She was just wondering if she could not fly over the fence and
be free, when the Man returned and cut some of the long feathers from
her right wing. Then she knew that she could not fly at all.
The Man next made a fine nest of hay in a good-sized box, placing it
in the shed and putting an egg into it. The Hen Turkey first thought
that it was her own egg, but when the Man left and she could come
nearer, she found that it was not. Instead, it was different from any
she had ever seen. She tried sitting on it. "It feels all right," she
said in her gentle and plaintive voice. "If I am still here when I
want to lay another, I will use this nest."
In spite of her loneliness and sadness, the Hen Turkey managed to keep
brave during the days that followed. The Man gave her plenty of good
corn and clean water, and she had many visits with the Hens and their
Chickens who lived in the pen next to hers and ran about all day in
their yard. Of course she did not think them so interesting as Turkey
Chicks, yet she liked to watch them and visit with them between the
wires. It made her want a brood of her own even more than ever.
She still laid eggs right along, and the Man took each away soon
after it was laid. She feared that he took them to eat, but the Barred
Plymouth Rock Hen said that he might be giving them to the table to
hatch, and that she should not worry. "I had just such a time myself,"
she added, "and it all came out right. You see if he does not bring
you some fine Turkey Chicks soon."
This always cheered the Hen Turkey for a time, but even if it were to
be so, she thought, she would prefer to hatch her own eggs. She did
not know that the Man had every one of hers in a basket in a dry, warm
place in the house, and was turning each over carefully every day.
This he did to keep them in the best possible way until there should
be a nestful for her to sit on.
Sometimes the Gobbler and the two other Hen Turkeys came up to the
fence to visit with her. They never stayed long, because they came of
a restless and wandering family, yet it did her good to have chats
with them, even if they walked back and forth part of the time as they
talked. The Gobbler paid very little attention to her. He told her
once that the Hen Turkeys who were foolish enough to try to raise
broods deserved to be shut up and have their wings clipped. She had
better visits with her sisters when he was not there to listen. One of
them told her that she had several eggs hidden under a sumach bush in
a fence corner. The other said that she was trying to decide on a
nesting-place; she couldn't choose between a corner of the lower
meadow and the edge of the woods. Both of them spoke very softly, and
frequently looked over toward where the Gobbler was strutting in the
sunshine. They were much afraid that he would hear.
When her sisters walked away, the Hen Turkey in the yard felt sadder
than ever. She strolled back into the shed and tried to think of
something pleasant to do. She had not laid an egg for two days, and
she was very lonely. You can imagine how pleased and happy she was to
see eleven fine Turkey eggs lying in her nest. The queer egg which she
had not laid was gone, and she felt certain that those there were all
her own. She got on the nest at once, and found that she could exactly
cover them. "How lucky!" she thought. "If there were another one it
would be too many and I could not keep it warm."
She did not know she had laid fifteen eggs, and that the Man had taken
the other four down cellar to be hatched by the incubator. She thought
it just luck that there were precisely enough. She did not know the
Man had read in one of his books that a Hen Turkey can safely cover
only eleven eggs. There are several things better than luck, you see.
Willingness to study is one and willingness to work is another. This
Man had both kinds of willingness, and it was well for his poultry
that he had.
There is not much to be told about the days that passed before the
first Turkey Chick chipped the shell. The sun shone into the open
front of the shed for twenty-eight days, and the patient Hen Turkey
was there, sitting on her nest. The moon shone into the shed for many
nights, and she was still there. The moon could not shine in for
twenty-eight nights for two reasons. Sometimes it set too early, and
sometimes the nights were cloudy and wet, although none of the days
were.
When it rained the Turkey was the happiest. She did not like wet
weather at all. It was for this reason she was happy. Every shower
reminded her how wet it must be out in the nettle-patch, and made her
think how cosy and happy she was in the place which the Man had made
ready for her.
Then came the joyous day on which ten little Turkey Chicks chipped the
shell. They were very promising children, quite the finest, their
mother thought, that she had ever seen. There was only one sad thing
about the day, and that was not having the eleventh egg hatch. The
Turkey Hen was too happy with her ten children to spend much time in
thinking of the other which she had hoped to have, but she could not
help remembering once in a while, and then she became very sad.
It was not until the next morning that the ten little ones began to
eat and to run around. Young Turkeys do not eat at all the first day,
you know, but they always make up for it afterwards.
When the Hen Turkey walked out of the shed with her family, the Hens
in the next yard crowded to the fence to see them. The little White
Plymouth Rocks could not understand for a long time why the Turkey
Chicks should be so large. "It isn't fair," they said. "Those Turkey
Chicks will be grown up long before we are!" They thought that to be
grown up was the finest thing in the world.
The Hens were very friendly and chatted long about them, telling the
fond mother how very slender their necks were and how neat their
little feet looked, with the tiny webs coming half-way to the tips of
their toes. "I am very glad for you," said the Barred Plymouth Rock
Hen. "I was sure that it would all come out right in the end. This Man
takes excellent care of his poultry."
After a while the Gobbler came strutting past. When he saw his
children, he stood his feathers on end and dragged his wings on the
ground. He was exceedingly angry, and would have liked it very well if
they had been on his side of the fence.
"Ugly little things!" he said to their mother. "They will tag around
after you all the rest of the summer."
"Very well," she replied. "I shall like to have them."
"Silly--silly--silly!" said the Gobbler, as he strutted off.
The Hen Turkey's sisters came walking slowly toward her. Both of them
were sitting on eggs, and had left their nests for a few minutes to
find food. Of course they could not make a long call. "I built in the
edge of the woods after all," said the one who had been so undecided.
"I wanted you to know, but don't tell anybody else, or the Gobbler may
hear of it and find the nest." Then she spoke of the ten Turkey Chicks
and asked the other sister to notice how much they looked like their
mother. After that they had to hurry back to their nests.
When the Hen Turkey called her Chicks to cuddle down for the night,
she found four already in the shed, eating from the food-dish.
"I thought you were all outside with me," she remarked. "Why did you
come in here?"
"We couldn't help ourselves," said they. "Some very large creature
brought us here just now. We came from a darker place than this."
The mother was very much puzzled. She knew that she had not hatched
them, and that they could not belong to her sisters, who had begun
sitting after she did. There was no way of taking them to any other
place for the night, so she decided to do the kind thing and care for
them herself. She was quite right in this. One is never sorry for
having done the kind thing, you know, but one is very often sorry for
having done the unkind thing. "Crawl right under my wings," said she,
"and cuddle down with these other Turkey Chicks. I will try to cover
you all."
She managed very well and the night was warm, so that although a few
of the Chicks were not wholly covered all the time, they got along
very comfortably indeed. By the next morning the mother loved the four
as much as she did her own ten. "It really doesn't matter in the least
who hatched them," she said, "or even who laid the eggs. They need a
mother and I can love them all. It would be a shame if I couldn't
stretch my wings a little more for the sake of covering them." She
never knew that they had been hatched in the incubator from the four
eggs which she had laid, but which the Man had thought she could not
cover. You see she was really adopting her own children without
knowing it.
Turkey mothers are hungry creatures, and do not understand that they
should not eat the hard-boiled eggs which are the best food for their
Chicks when very small. So the Man had either to shut this mother in
the shed and place the food for the Chicks outside, where she could
not reach it, or else find some other way of keeping it from her. He
thought a Turkey who had sat so closely on her nest for four weeks
should be allowed to stretch, so he put the food for the children in a
coop and left the mother free. The little ones could run in and out
whenever they wanted to eat, and the mother had plenty of corn and
water outside, so they were all well cared for and happy. The Gobbler
said unkind things to them each time he passed, but they were too
happy and sensible to mind that very much, and it did not seem long
before the Chicks' tail-and wing-feathers were showing through their
down, and they were given porridge and milk instead of hard-boiled
egg. This made them feel that they were growing up very fast indeed,
and they kept stretching their tiny wings and looking around at their
funny little tails to watch their feathers lengthen.
On the day when they had their first porridge, their aunts and their
newly hatched cousins were brought in to share their yard with them.
You can imagine what happy times they all had, playing together and
visiting through the wire fence with their next-door neighbors, the
White Plymouth Rock Chickens.
The Gobbler used to pass by and try to make them and their mothers
unhappy by telling them of the pleasure they missed by being shut up.
"There is fine food in the lower meadow," he said, "and the upper one
is even better. There are delicious Bugs to be found by the side of
the road. But these are for me, and not for silly Hen Turkeys and
their good-for-nothing Chicks."
One day the outer gate of the empty yard next to theirs was left open
and some fine corn strewn inside, just as the Gobbler came along. He
strutted in to eat the corn, thinking a little of it would taste good
before he started for the meadow.
He stood with his back to the gate while eating, and quite often he
stopped between mouthfuls to tell the Hen Turkeys how fine it was
outside. Soon he noticed the Man opening the gate of their yard and
letting the oldest flock pass through with their mother. He took one
hurried last mouthful and turned to leave. The gate of his yard was
shut, and he was too fat and old to fly over the fence.
[Illustration: THE HAPPY TURKEY MOTHER PAUSED ON HER WAY. _Page 113_]
The happy Turkey mother paused on her way to the meadows with her
flock. She was a very patient creature, and would never have dared say
anything of the sort to the Gobbler when he was free, but now she
decided to say what she wished for once. "Thank you very much for
telling us about the fine food outside," said she. "We shall soon be
enjoying it. We shall first try the lower meadow and then the upper
one. After that we shall hunt for those delicious Bugs which you say
may be found by the roadside. Probably we shall find plenty of
dandelion, cress, and mustard leaves, with a few Ants or nettles to
give flavor. It is really very fine outside."