ace, only perfectly ridiculous.

[Illustration: "THE OLD GOBBLER 'FIRST PREMIUM' SAID THEY WERE GOING TO
TURN THE TABLES NOW."]

Then the old gobbler, First Premium, clapped his wings, and said,
"Come on, chick-chickledren!" and then they all seemed to be in her
room, and she was standing in the middle of it in her night-gown,
and tied round and round with ribbons, so she couldn't move hand or
foot. The old gobbler, First Premium, said they were going to turn the
tables now, and she knew what he meant, for they had had that in the
reader at school just before vacation, and the teacher had explained
it. He made a long speech, with his hat on, and kept pointing at her
with one of his wings, while he told the other turkeys that it was her
grandfather who had done it, and now it was their turn. He said that
human beings had been eating turkeys ever since the discovery of
America, and it was time for the turkeys to begin paying them back, if
they were ever going to. He said she was pretty young, but she was as
big as he was, and he had no doubt they would enjoy her.

The other little girl tried to tell him that she was not to blame, and
that she only took a very, very little piece.

"But it was right off the breast," said the gobbler, and he shed
tears, so that the other little girl cried, too. She didn't have much
hopes, they all seemed so spiteful, especially the little turkey
chicks; but she told them that she was very tender-hearted, and never
hurt a single thing, and she tried to make them understand that there
was a great difference between eating people and just eating turkeys.

"What difference, I should like to know?" says the old hen-turkey,
pretty snappishly.

"People have got souls, and turkeys haven't," says the other little
girl.

"I don't see how _that_ makes it any better," says the old hen-turkey.
"It don't make it any better for the _turkeys_. If we haven't got any
souls, we can't live after we've been eaten up, and you _can_."

The other little girl was awfully frightened to have the hen-turkey
take that tack.

"I should think she would 'a' been," said the little girl; and she
cuddled snugger into her papa's arms. "What _could_ she say? Ugh! Go
on."

Well, she didn't know what to say, that's a fact. You see, she never
thought of it in that light before. All she could say was, "Well,
people have got reason, anyway, and turkeys h