ill." And then he turned suddenly upon the startled rooster. "Look
here!" cried Turkey Proudfoot. "It seems to me that _you_ are giving
_me_ orders."

"Not at all!" the rooster assured him. "No, indeed! You're mistaken."

"Don't tell me I'm mistaken!" Turkey Proudfoot bawled in an angry,
gobbly voice. "I'm never mistaken."

"Oh, certainly not!" said the rooster, who was bold as brass with most
of his neighbors, but very mild with Turkey Proudfoot.

"Ha!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "You're getting yourself into a hole,
sir! If I wasn't mistaken, then you _were_ giving me orders. And in
either case I should have to fight you."

This was too much for the rooster. He couldn't grasp what Turkey
Proudfoot was saying. He only knew that things looked bad for him
because Turkey Proudfoot was getting angrier every moment.

"I say!" the rooster cried. "Please don't waste your time on me just
now, Mr. Turkey Proudfoot! Here come the six silly geese back from the
duck pond. And I'd suggest that you speak to them at once and warn them
not to enter the water again."

Turkey Proudfoot glanced across the farmyard. It was as the rooster had
said. The six geese were waddling around a corner of the barn in single
file. Somehow the sight of them made him so furious that he forgot he
had been picking a quarrel with the rooster.

"I'll attend to them," he gobbled. "I'll fix them. They'll be so scared
that they won't dare leave this yard again."

Turkey Proudfoot hurried towards the geese. He didn't take time to
strut, but ran across the yard with long strides.

"Don't be silly geese!" Turkey Proudfoot called. "Keep away from the
duck-pond! The weather's getting colder every day; and it makes me
shiver to see you start off for a swim."

Turkey Proudfoot had supposed the six geese would be very meek and most
eager to obey his commands. But to his great surprise they stopped,
wheeled about so that they stood in a row, facing him, and hissed
loudly.

It was not at all the sort of answer Turkey Proudfoot had expected.

IV

SCARING THE GEESE

The six geese stood in a row and hissed at Turkey Proudfoot. He was so
astonished that any one of them could have knocked him over with a
feather, almost. When he gobbled an order at them, telling them not to
go swimming again, the geese hissed at him. That was just the same as
telling him to keep still and mind his own affairs.

And Turkey Proudfoot was not used to answers like t