THE TURKEY CHICKS ARE HATCHED
Spring was always an anxious time for the Hen Turkeys who wanted toraise broods. Raising children is hard work and brings many anxietieswith it. The mother is so much afraid that they will take cold, or eattoo much, or not get enough to eat, or take something that is not goodfor children. There is also the fear that they may be careless andhave some dreadful accident. And, worst of all, there is always thefear that they may be naughty and grow up the wrong sort of people.
These cares all mothers have, but the Turkey mothers have another carewhich is really very hard to stand, for the Gobblers do not like theirchildren and will try in every way to prevent the eggs from hatching.If a Gobbler sees one of the Hen Turkeys laying an egg, he will breakthe egg, and if he meets a flock of tiny Turkey Chicks he will peckand hurt, perhaps even kill, all that he can of them. That is why theHen Turkeys on the farm had always been in the habit of stealing awayto lay their eggs in some secret place. One had even raised a finebrood in the middle of a nettle-patch the year before. She had slippedaway from her friends and from the Gobbler day after day until she hadlaid thirteen eggs, and then had begun sitting. She had to sit as longas the Ducks do, and that is for twenty-eight days. You can imaginehow tired she became, and how many times she had kept very still,hardly daring to move a feather, because she heard the Gobbler nearand feared he would find and break her precious eggs.
Now she began to feel like laying, and walked off to the nettle-patchonce more. She thought that having had such good luck there before wasa reason for trying it again. She had hardly laid her fine large eggthere when the Man came softly along and picked her up by the legs.She flapped her wings and craned her head as far upwards as she could,yet he did not loosen his hold on her. He carried her carefully, buthe carried her just the same.
When he reached the poultry-house, he put her in a pen by herself.Then he went off to the farmhouse with her newly laid egg in hispocket. You can imagine how sad she felt. If there is one thing that aHen Turkey likes better than taking long walks, it is raising TurkeyChicks. In spite of the weariness and the anxiety, she is very fond ofit. And now this one found herself shut in and without her egg. It istrue that, besides the pen, she could go into the scratching-shed andthe big yard, yet even then there was the wired netting between herand the great world, and her friends were on the other side of thefence. She was just wondering if she could not fly over the fence andbe free, when the Man returned and cut some of the long feathers fromher right wing. Then she knew that she could not fly at all.
The Man next made a fine nest of hay in a good-sized box, placing itin the shed and putting an egg into it. The Hen Turkey first thoughtthat it was her own egg, but when the Man left and she could comenearer, she found that it was not. Instead, it was different from anyshe had ever seen. She tried sitting on it. "It feels all right," shesaid in her gentle and plaintive voice. "If I am still here when Iwant to lay another, I will use this nest."
In spite of her loneliness and sadness, the Hen Turkey managed to keepbrave during the days that followed. The Man gave her plenty of goodcorn and clean water, and she had many visits with the Hens and theirChickens who lived in the pen next to hers and ran about all day intheir yard. Of course she did not think them so interesting as TurkeyChicks, yet she liked to watch them and visit with them between thewires. It made her want a brood of her own even more than ever.
She still laid eggs right along, and the Man took each away soonafter it was laid. She feared that he took them to eat, but the BarredPlymouth Rock Hen said that he might be giving them to the table tohatch, and that she should not worry. "I had just such a time myself,"she added, "and it all came out right. You see if he does not bringyou some fine Turkey Chicks soon."
This always cheered the Hen Turkey for a time, but even if it were tobe so, she thought, she would prefer to hatch her own eggs. She didnot know that the Man had every one of hers in a basket in a dry, warmplace in the house, and was turning each over carefully every day.This he did to keep them in the best possible way until there shouldbe a nestful for her to sit on.
Sometimes the Gobbler and the two other Hen Turkeys came up to thefence to visit with her. They never stayed long, because they came ofa restless and wandering family, yet it did her good to have chatswith them, even if they walked back and forth part of the time as theytalked. The Gobbler paid very little attention to her. He told heronce that the Hen Turkeys who were foolish enough to try to raisebroods deserved to be shut up and have their wings clipped. She hadbetter visits with her sisters when he was not there to listen. One ofthem told her that she had several eggs hidden under a sumach bush ina fence corner. The other said that she was trying to decide on anesting-place; she couldn't choose between a corner of the lowermeadow and the edge of the woods. Both of them spoke very softly, andfrequently looked over toward where the Gobbler was strutting in thesunshine. They were much afraid that he would hear.
When her sisters walked away, the Hen Turkey in the yard felt sadderthan ever. She strolled back into the shed and tried to think ofsomething pleasant to do. She had not laid an egg for two days, andshe was very lonely. You can imagine how pleased and happy she was tosee eleven fine Turkey eggs lying in her nest. The queer egg which shehad not laid was gone, and she felt certain that those there were allher own. She got on the nest at once, and found that she could exactlycover them. "How lucky!" she thought. "If there were another one itwould be too many and I could not keep it warm."
She did not know she had laid fifteen eggs, and that the Man had takenthe other four down cellar to be hatched by the incubator. She thoughtit just luck that there were precisely enough. She did not know theMan had read in one of his books that a Hen Turkey can safely coveronly eleven eggs. There are several things better than luck, you see.Willingness to study is one and willingness to work is another. ThisMan had both kinds of willingness, and it was well for his poultrythat he had.
There is not much to be told about the days that passed before thefirst Turkey Chick chipped the shell. The sun shone into the openfront of the shed for twenty-eight days, and the patient Hen Turkeywas there, sitting on her nest. The moon shone into the shed for manynights, and she was still there. The moon could not shine in fortwenty-eight nights for two reasons. Sometimes it set too early, andsometimes the nights were cloudy and wet, although none of the dayswere.
When it rained the Turkey was the happiest. She did not like wetweather at all. It was for this reason she was happy. Every showerreminded her how wet it must be out in the nettle-patch, and made herthink how cosy and happy she was in the place which the Man had madeready for her.
Then came the joyous day on which ten little Turkey Chicks chipped theshell. They were very promising children, quite the finest, theirmother thought, that she had ever seen. There was only one sad thingabout the day, and that was not having the eleventh egg hatch. TheTurkey Hen was too happy with her ten children to spend much time inthinking of the other which she had hoped to have, but she could nothelp remembering once in a while, and then she became very sad.
It was not until the next morning that the ten little ones began toeat and to run around. Young Turkeys do not eat at all the first day,you know, but they always make up for it afterwards.
When the Hen Turkey walked out of the shed with her family, the Hensin the next yard crowded to the fence to see them. The little WhitePlymouth Rocks could not understand for a long time why the TurkeyChicks should be so large. "It isn't fair," they said. "Those TurkeyChicks will be grown up long before we are!" They thought that to begrown up was the finest thing in the world.
The Hens were very friendly and chatted long about them, telling thefond mother how very slender their necks were and how neat theirlittle feet looked, with the tiny webs coming half-way to the tips oftheir toes. "I am very glad for you," said the Barred Plymouth RockHen. "I was sure that it would all come out right in the end. This Mantakes excellent care of his poultry."
After a while the Gobbl
er came strutting past. When he saw hischildren, he stood his feathers on end and dragged his wings on theground. He was exceedingly angry, and would have liked it very well ifthey had been on his side of the fence.
"Ugly little things!" he said to their mother. "They will tag aroundafter you all the rest of the summer."
"Very well," she replied. "I shall like to have them."
"Silly--silly--silly!" said the Gobbler, as he strutted off.
The Hen Turkey's sisters came walking slowly toward her. Both of themwere sitting on eggs, and had left their nests for a few minutes tofind food. Of course they could not make a long call. "I built in theedge of the woods after all," said the one who had been so undecided."I wanted you to know, but don't tell anybody else, or the Gobbler mayhear of it and find the nest." Then she spoke of the ten Turkey Chicksand asked the other sister to notice how much they looked like theirmother. After that they had to hurry back to their nests.
When the Hen Turkey called her Chicks to cuddle down for the night,she found four already in the shed, eating from the food-dish.
"I thought you were all outside with me," she remarked. "Why did youcome in here?"
"We couldn't help ourselves," said they. "Some very large creaturebrought us here just now. We came from a darker place than this."
The mother was very much puzzled. She knew that she had not hatchedthem, and that they could not belong to her sisters, who had begunsitting after she did. There was no way of taking them to any otherplace for the night, so she decided to do the kind thing and care forthem herself. She was quite right in this. One is never sorry forhaving done the kind thing, you know, but one is very often sorry forhaving done the unkind thing. "Crawl right under my wings," said she,"and cuddle down with these other Turkey Chicks. I will try to coveryou all."
She managed very well and the night was warm, so that although a fewof the Chicks were not wholly covered all the time, they got alongvery comfortably indeed. By the next morning the mother loved the fouras much as she did her own ten. "It really doesn't matter in the leastwho hatched them," she said, "or even who laid the eggs. They need amother and I can love them all. It would be a shame if I couldn'tstretch my wings a little more for the sake of covering them." Shenever knew that they had been hatched in the incubator from the foureggs which she had laid, but which the Man had thought she could notcover. You see she was really adopting her own children withoutknowing it.
Turkey mothers are hungry creatures, and do not understand that theyshould not eat the hard-boiled eggs which are the best food for theirChicks when very small. So the Man had either to shut this mother inthe shed and place the food for the Chicks outside, where she couldnot reach it, or else find some other way of keeping it from her. Hethought a Turkey who had sat so closely on her nest for four weeksshould be allowed to stretch, so he put the food for the children in acoop and left the mother free. The little ones could run in and outwhenever they wanted to eat, and the mother had plenty of corn andwater outside, so they were all well cared for and happy. The Gobblersaid unkind things to them each time he passed, but they were toohappy and sensible to mind that very much, and it did not seem longbefore the Chicks' tail-and wing-feathers were showing through theirdown, and they were given porridge and milk instead of hard-boiledegg. This made them feel that they were growing up very fast indeed,and they kept stretching their tiny wings and looking around at theirfunny little tails to watch their feathers lengthen.
On the day when they had their first porridge, their aunts and theirnewly hatched cousins were brought in to share their yard with them.You can imagine what happy times they all had, playing together andvisiting through the wire fence with their next-door neighbors, theWhite Plymouth Rock Chickens.
The Gobbler used to pass by and try to make them and their mothersunhappy by telling them of the pleasure they missed by being shut up."There is fine food in the lower meadow," he said, "and the upper oneis even better. There are delicious Bugs to be found by the side ofthe road. But these are for me, and not for silly Hen Turkeys andtheir good-for-nothing Chicks."
One day the outer gate of the empty yard next to theirs was left openand some fine corn strewn inside, just as the Gobbler came along. Hestrutted in to eat the corn, thinking a little of it would taste goodbefore he started for the meadow.
He stood with his back to the gate while eating, and quite often hestopped between mouthfuls to tell the Hen Turkeys how fine it wasoutside. Soon he noticed the Man opening the gate of their yard andletting the oldest flock pass through with their mother. He took onehurried last mouthful and turned to leave. The gate of his yard wasshut, and he was too fat and old to fly over the fence.
THE HAPPY TURKEY MOTHER PAUSED ON HER WAY. _Page 113_]
The happy Turkey mother paused on her way to the meadows with herflock. She was a very patient creature, and would never have dared sayanything of the sort to the Gobbler when he was free, but now shedecided to say what she wished for once. "Thank you very much fortelling us about the fine food outside," said she. "We shall soon beenjoying it. We shall first try the lower meadow and then the upperone. After that we shall hunt for those delicious Bugs which you saymay be found by the roadside. Probably we shall find plenty ofdandelion, cress, and mustard leaves, with a few Ants or nettles togive flavor. It is really very fine outside."