n't a word to say. For the
moment he was struck dumb.

At last he found his voice. "Who are you?" he bellowed.

"Ha! ha! ha! ha!"

"Don't laugh at me!" cried Turkey Proudfoot.

"Polly wants a cracker," said the green bird.

A few quick steps brought Turkey Proudfoot upon the piazza, nearer the
cage where the annoying green person swung and made queer, throaty
noises--sounds which only angered Turkey Proud foot the more.

Turkey Proudfoot took a little run and rose into the air, to crash
against the cage and then fall flapping upon the piazza floor.

The green person shrieked. And the hired man, with an axe in his hand,
peered out of the woodshed door.

"Here, you old gobbler! You leave our Polly alone!" he called. And he
ran out and gave Turkey Proudfoot a sharp rap with the axe helve.

Turkey Proudfoot ran off and hid behind the barn and sulked.

"There's a bird around here," he muttered, "that mocks Miss Kitty Cat;
and they call him a Cat Bird. Now, here's a bird that mocks me; so I
should think they'd call him a Turkey Bird. But they don't. I heard the
hired man call him Pretty Polly.

"Pretty Polly indeed!" Turkey Proudfoot sniffed. "That creature is
nothing but a bunch of green feathers and a loud voice."

X

THE WORM TURNS

Henrietta Hen had no love for Turkey Proudfoot. Beginning with the days
of her chickenhood he had always ordered her about, telling her not to
do this and not to do that. Even after she was grown up and had a family
of her own, Turkey Proudfoot treated her as if she had just begun to
scratch for herself.

If Henrietta Hen found a spot where somebody had spilled a few kernels
of corn Turkey Proudfoot was more than likely to rush up to her and cry,
"Go away! I've had my eye on that corn for some time. I saw it first."

On such occasions there was nothing Henrietta Hen could do except to
stand aside and look on while Turkey Proudfoot ate the corn. He was so
much bigger than she that he could bowl her over easily.

On her own account Henrietta didn't really think it worth while to try
to make any trouble for Turkey Proudfoot. But when she led her first
brood of chicks into the yard to teach them to find food for themselves,
Turkey Proudfoot's lordly ways made her very angry.

"Move your family over on the gravel drive!" Turkey Proudfoot ordered
her.

Henrietta Hen said flatly that she wouldn't.

"There are no bugs--no worms--in the gravel," she told him. "My chicks