MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO

(Ouida, "Bimbi")

I

A

TURKEY stood on a wall and saw a drove of black and gray pigs go by on the high-road underneath. The turkey was a very handsome gobbler, and his plumage was of a most brilliant gray and white, and his wattles were of the red of the carnation or the rose. He was very proud, and as he looked down on the pigs he stuck up his tail peacock-wise and fanned the air with it and strutted up and down on the stone ledge, and said to himself: "What poor, dusty, hard-driven drudges those are in the road there! And not a single feather upon them! Nothing to cover their bodies except a few dingylooking hairs! And they can only make an odd snuffling noise instead of gobbling! And then what a tail!-a wisp of rope would be better!"

Next morning, lo! the turkey was put into a coop and was carried off to market, with a number of ducks and geese and cackling pullets; and who should be next to him but a poor gray pig, with his heels tied together so that he could not stir!

"What a wretched creature!" said the turkey in his pride, for the coop had not taken down his vanity one peg. "What a

As for

sorry animal! and such a tail! Of course they are going to cut his throat. me, this is a throne; I suppose I am going to the palace. Perhaps the Queen has never seen a beautiful turkey before."

Then he began to spread out his tailplume, and shake his rosy wattles, and began to gobble, gobble, gobble, with all his might. But the cart gave a lurch, and the coop tilted on one side, and the turkey tilted up with it and lost his balance.

"Dear me! what a price one pays for being of high rank in this world!" he said

to himself, as he clung to the side of the wicker-work, and tried to preserve his dignity.

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He'll be fine for killing three months hence, ma'am!" his driver was saying, as he stopped the cart, and held up the coop to show our gentleman to a woman who stood on the curbstone.

"For killing!" echoed the turkey; and he swooned away, and fell in a heap of ruffled feathers on the bottom of the wicker-work prison. For death had never occurred to him as a possible fall for himself, though he saw other creatures go daily to martyrdom.

"You will be sooner or later killed, just as I shall be," said the pig, with a grunt, as the turkey came to himself. "What do you suppose they fatten you for? For love of you? Ough! you silly, vain thing!"

"I thought it was because-because because I am a turkey," sighed the poor prisoner in the coop. "Because you are

a turkey!" echoed the pig. "As if there were not five hundred thousand turkeys in the world! That is all. You will be killed before Christmas just as I shall be; a knife will slit your throat."

The poor turkey swooned again on hearing this, and did not recover so rapidly as before; therefore the cart had jolted on again, and was standing in the marketplace, with the horses out of the shafts, before he opened his eyes and regained consciousness.

II

The master of the cart was away from it, and it had been unpacked of most of its contents, and the pig and the turkey were left alone.

Suddenly the pig gave a grunt and the turkey started, for his nerves were on edge, and the least thing frightened him.

"What a hideous voice you have!" he said pettishly; "you should hear me!"

And he began to gobble with all his might.