the turkey. It did seem to
be getting heavy. Halstead also got his dough dish and showed us how he
fed his bird. After the second roll of dough had been shoved down his
throat, the poor gobbler opened his bill and gave a queer little gasp of
repletion, like _Ca-r-r-r!_ None the less, Halstead made him swallow
four rolls of dough!

Addison was disgusted. "Halse, I call that nasty!" he said. "I wouldn't
care to eat a turkey fattened that way. I've a good notion to tell the
old Squire about this."

Halstead was angry. "Oh, yes!" he exclaimed. "After I raise the biggest
turkey, I suppose you will go and tell everybody that it isn't fit to
eat!"

So Addison and I went about our business, but we used to peep down there
once in a while, to see that poor bird standing, humped up, on his sheet
of bark. Sometimes, too, when we saw Halstead going down with the
lantern to feed him, we went along to see the performance and hear the
turkey groan, _Ca-r-r-r!_ "Halstead, that's wicked!" Addison said
several times; and Halstead retorted that we were both trying to make
out a story against him, so as to sneak our own turkeys in ahead of his.

Nine or ten days passed. Halstead was nearly always behindhand when we
turned out to do the farm chores. As we went through the wagon-house one
morning Addison stopped to take another peep at the captive; I went on,
but a moment later heard him calling to me softly. When I joined him at
the foot of the stairs he lighted a match for me to see. Halstead's
gobbler lay dead with both feet up in the air. We wondered what Halstead
would say when he went to feed his turkey. As we left, we heard him
coming down from upstairs. He did not join us, to help do the chores,
for half an hour. When he did appear, he looked glum; he had carried the
poor victim of forced feeding out behind the west barn and buried him in
the bean field--without ceremonies.

We said nothing--except now and then, as days passed, to ask him how the
speckled gobbler was coming on. Halstead would look hard at us, but
vouchsafed no replies.

The judge's turkey was sent to Portland on November 15; at that period
each state appointed its own Thanksgiving Day, and in Maine the 17th had
been set. Addison's choice had proved the best turkey: I think it
weighed nearly seventeen pounds; he divided the five dollars with
Theodora. The old Squire never learned of Halstead's bootless experiment
in forced feeding.

CHAPTER XXIX

MITC