where a flock of wild turkeys had their haunts among the beech trees.
He would announce, with much presumption and assurance, at some
farm-house door, that he would be over for dinner to-morrow, and that
it would be a game dinner, and that he would leave the game with them
on his way back that same evening. There would be chaffings and
expressions of doubt as to reliance upon such promise and "First catch
your rabbit" comment, but they were not earnest words, for his ability
as a mighty hunter was well known.

Craft and patience are required when the wild turkey is to be secured,
for it is wise in its generation, and will carry lead, but it is worth
the trouble, for no pampered gobbler of the farm-yard has meat of its
rich flavor. Beech-nuts and berries make diet for a bird for kings to
eat. And when Harlson brought a couple of noble young turkeys to the
board the banquet was a great one, and the boys pitched quoits that
night no better for it. A good thing is the wild turkey, but even a
better thing, when his numbers and quality are considered, is the
ruffed grouse, the partridge of the North, the pheasant of the South.
How, in the lake region, he dawdles among the low-land thornberry
bushes in autumn, how he knows of many things to eat beside the
thorn-apples, and how plump he gets, and how cunning! How watchful he
is, how knowing of covert, and with what a burst he lifts himself from
his hiding-place and whirls away between the tree-trunks! How quick
the eye and hand to catch him when he rises from the underbrush and is
out of sight in the wood before the untrained sportsman stops him with
what is little more than a snapshot, so instantaneously must all be
done! Yet what a dignified thing is he, and how easy to find by one
who knows his ways and what hold habit has upon his gray-brown majesty.
Should the sudden shot fail, there is the fatal weakness of the bird of
flying, as the bee flies, straight as an arrow goes, and of alighting