he air. Why,
yours and mine stick up. But we don't go around boasting about them. And
if somebody else has a stickier-up tail, why worry about it? And if
somebody else with a louder voice can wake Farmer Green better than you
can, why worry about that? Let the Peacock scream if he wants to!"

"And _I_--" cried Turkey Proudfoot, who had been standing beneath the
tree where Mr. and Mrs. Wren were talking--"_I_ say, let the Peacock
parade in the front yard if he wants to. I certainly shan't visit him
there. I'll parade behind the farmhouse."

When Turkey Proudfoot first spoke up like that, Rusty Wren and his wife
gave each other an uneasy look. They had expected him to be angry. And
now, with an air of great relief, Mrs. Wren exclaimed:

"I apologize to you, Mr. Turkey Proudfoot. You're not as silly as I
supposed. You're not as vain as I thought you were. I begin to think
we've been mistaken about you all these years."

"You certainly have been," Turkey Proudfoot declared. "I'm not vain at
all and I'm glad I haven't the Peacock's horrid, harsh voice. Mine is
much more beautiful than his. And nobody can deny it."

"_Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!_"

XVI

DRUMMING ON A LOG

Turkey Proudfoot was not always content to stay in the farmyard.
Although Farmer Green fed him well, he liked to range over the fields in
search of extra tidbits, such as grain, seeds and insects. Sometimes he
wandered even as far as the pasture. And one day he strayed into the
edge of the woods beyond the pasture fence.

There he discovered a beech tree. And Turkey Proudfoot was enjoying the
nuts that he found on the ground beneath it when all at once a
_thump-thump-thump_ startled him. He raised his head and listened. The
thumping sound came faster and faster, then died away in a rumble.

"Ho! It's only Johnnie Green drumming. Probably his mother wouldn't let
him drum near the farmhouse, so he came to the woods where she couldn't
hear him."

Turkey Proudfoot paid no more heed to the drumming, which rolled through
the woods now and then. He went on with his search for beechnuts. But at
last a thought popped into his head. "Johnnie Green must be eating most
of the time, or he'd drum oftener," Turkey Proudfoot muttered. "He must
have found a beech tree."

Soon Turkey Proudfoot decided to join Johnnie Green. He hoped that
beechnuts were more plentiful beneath Johnnie's tree. So Turkey
Proudfoot picked his way slowly through the under