[Illustration: Bishop of Turkey]
We hear a great deal from scientific men about the influence of climate,
atmosphere, and even the proximity of certain mineral substances, upon
the life and welfare of man; but there is yet another vein to be worked
in this region of human knowledge. Taking a chance train of ideas--an
excursion-train, we may say--which came in our way on last Thanksgiving,
we were brought to some interesting conclusions in regard to the
influence exercised by the turkey upon human affairs. The annual
happiness of how many thousands at the return of Thanksgiving Day--the
unfed woes of how many thousands more--does this estimable fowl revolve
within his urbane crop! Every kernel of grain which he picks from the
barn-floor may represent an instant of masticatory joy held in store for
some as yet unconscious maxillary; we may weigh the bird by the amount
of happiness he will afford. When we go to market, to barter for our
Thanksgiving turkey, we inquire substantially of the spruce vender,
glistening in his white apron: "How much gustatory delight does yonder
cock contain?" And he, gross slave of matter, doth respond, giving the
estimate in dollars and parts of dollars!
But how inadequate is any material representative of his value to us.
Indeed, it is next to impossible to conceive of the niceties involved in
this question of how much we owe the turkey. For him the country air has
been sweetened; the rain has fallen that he might thrive; the wheat and
barley sprouted that he might be fed. A shade more of leanness in the
legs, one jot less of rotundity in the breast--what misery might not
these seemingly trivial incidents have created? A failure in the supply
of turkeys?--it would have been a national calamity! What were life,
indeed, without the turkey?
As for Thanksgiving, the turkey he is it. _Paris, c'est la France!_
Remove the turkey, and you undermine Thanksgiving. How could a
conscientious man go to church on Thanksgiving morning, knowing within
himself that he shall return to beef, or mutton, or veal for his dinner,
as on work-days? I tell you, religion would disappear with the turkey.
Toward the close of Thanksgiving, how manifest becomes the influence of
this feathered sovereign. Observe yonder jaundiced youth pacing the
street moodily, his lips set in a cynic sneer. His turkey was lean. I
know it. He cannot hide that turkey. The gaunt fowl obtrudes himself
from every part. On the other hand, none but the primest of prime
turkeys could have set in motion this brisk old gentleman with the ruddy
check and hale, clear eye, whom we next pass. A most stanch and royal
turkey lurks behind that portly front--a sound and fresh animal, with
plenty of cranberries to boot.--What are these soldiers? Carpet-knights
who have united their thanks over a grand regimental banquet. What
frisky gobblers they have shared in, to be sure! They prance and amble
over the pavements as if they had absorbed the very soul of Chanticleer,
and fancied themselves once more princes of the barnyard. The most
singular and freakish of the turkey's manifestations this, by far!
Indeed, on a review of these suggestive facts, we cannot but feel a
marvellous reverence for the potent cock, established as patron of this
feast. This sentiment is wide-spread among our people, and perhaps it is
not too fanciful to predict that it will some day expand itself to a
_cultus_ like that of the Egyptian APIS, or, more properly, the Stork of
Japan. The advanced civilization of the Chinese, indeed, has already
made the Chicken an object of religious veneration. In the slow march of
ages we shall perhaps develop our as yet crude and imperfect religions
into an exalted worship of the Turkey. Then shall the symbolic bird,
trussed as for Thanksgiving, be enshrined in all our temples, and the
multitudes making pilgrimage from afar to such sanctuaries shall be
greeted by an inscription over the temple-gate of BRILLAT SAVARIN'S
axiom:--
"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are."
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