ted a fine young turkey, and
this little knee-high turkey was growin' to be a big turkey, and so
she brought him over and gave him the run of the barnyard.

"She was just as good to him as she could be. She made a nice clean
place for him to live in, so his feathers wouldn't get dirty any mo',
and he didn't have to run 'round lookin' for grasshoppers and beetles
and little worms as he did at home, but he had a nice bowl of mush
eve'y day and a place to go to sleep in all by himself, and Aunt Nancy
did everythin' she could to make him comfo'table.

"Well, what do you think happened? Just as soon as that turkey found
out he was bein' taken caare of better than the hens and the roosters
and all the other little turkeys he had left at home, he began to put
on airs. He breshed his feathers out and he strutted around same as if
he owned the whole barnyard, and he'd go down to the pond and look at
himself in the water; and he got so proud that whenever old Mrs. Hen
or old Mr. Rooster would say 'Good-mornin'' to him as kind and as nice
as could be, he wouldn't answer politely, but he'd stick up his head
and go 'Gobble-gobble-gobble!' and then he'd swell up again and puff
out his chest and march himself off. Pretty soon he got so sassy that
nobody could live with him. Why, he didn't care what he did and who he
stepped on. He trampled on two po' little chicks one day that were
just out of the shell and mashed them flat and did all sorts of
dreadful things."

"What an awful turkey! Poor little chickens," sighed Katy. "Go on."

"Next thing he did was to steal off and smoke cigarettes."

Katy raised her head and looked up into the Colonel's eyes.

"Why, turkeys can't smoke, can they?"

"Oh, no--of co'se not--I forgot. That's another story and I got them
mixed up. Where was I? Oh, yes, when he got so sassy."

Katy dropped her head on his shoulder again. Jim was now listening
with all his might, his only fear being that Chad or Miss Nancy or the
knocker on the front door would summon him before the story was ended.

"Well," continued the Colonel, "that went on and on and on till there
wasn't any livin' with him. Even dear Aunt Nancy couldn't get along
with him, which is a dreadful thing to say of anybody. So one
day"--here the Colonel's voice dropped to a tone of grave
importance--"one day--Mammy Henny--that's the wife of Chad over there
by the table, crep' up behind this wicked, sassy little turkey, when
he was swellin' aro