Master Meadow Mouse was so upset that he murmured faintly, "Yes, it's
me."

"Well, I don't blame them," said Turkey Proudfoot. "You certainly look
very queer. Why are you holding your foot off the ground like that?"

"I was in the midst of taking a step when you turned around and startled
me," Master Meadow Mouse explained. "And I don't know whether to set my
foot down ahead of me, or to put it behind me."

"Don't be alarmed!" Turkey Proudfoot said. "I never fight folks of your
size. You're too little for me to pay much attention to. I must say,
however, that you have a very odd way of walking."

By this time Master Meadow Mouse had recovered from his surprise and
wasn't afraid in the least. Now he laughed heartily.

"I was walking the way you walk," he cried.

"Oh, no!" Turkey Proudfoot exclaimed. "No, indeed! You certainly
weren't." He didn't ask Master Meadow Mouse's pardon for contradicting.

"I'd like to know why I wasn't," Master Meadow Mouse replied somewhat
hotly. "I was strutting right behind you, all the way across the yard.
That's why everybody was giggling."

"It's no wonder they were poking fun at you," Turkey Proudfoot told him.
"You amused the neighbors because you thought you were strutting, while
you really weren't."

Master Meadow Mouse put his foot down on the ground. He was puzzled.

"I don't know why I wasn't strutting," he retorted. "I was raising my
feet just as high as I could lift them."

"Ah, yes?" said Turkey Proudfoot. "But you forgot one thing."

"What was that?"

"You didn't spread your tail," Turkey Proudfoot explained. "And that's
half of strutting."

"I--I didn't know it," Master Meadow Mouse stammered. And then he darted
away, to hide in the grass beyond the fence.

He felt much ashamed to have made such a mistake.

VIII

HARD TO PLEASE

It was very hard to please Turkey Proudfoot. To be sure, he always
pleased himself. But nothing anyone else did seemed to suit him. And
there was one thing that always made him peevish. That was the gobbling
of the younger turkey cocks.

To anybody that wasn't a turkey, their voices sounded just as sweet as
Turkey Proudfoot's. But he claimed that there was something wrong with
all gobbles except his own. Either they were too loud or too soft, too
high or too low, too long or too short. And whenever a young cock
gobbled in his hearing Turkey Proudfoot was sure to rush up to him and
order him to keep still, for pity's s