"You didn't spread your tail," Turkey Proudfoot explained. "And that's half of strutting."
"I—I didn't know it," Master Meadow Mouse stammered. And then he darted away, to hide in the grass beyond the fence.
He felt much ashamed to have made such a mistake.
VIII
HARD TO PLEASE
It was very hard to please Turkey Proudfoot. To be sure, he always pleased himself. But nothing anyone else did seemed to suit him. And there was one thing that always made him peevish. That was the gobbling of the younger turkey cocks.
To anybody that wasn't a turkey, their voices sounded just as sweet as Turkey Proudfoot's. But he claimed that there was something wrong with all gobbles except his own. Either they were too loud or too soft, too high or too low, too long or too short. And whenever a young cock gobbled in his hearing Turkey Proudfoot[p. 36] was sure to rush up to him and order him to keep still, for pity's sake!
They usually obeyed him. Not only was Turkey Proudfoot the biggest gobbler on the farm, but he had a fierce and lordly look about him. It was a bold young turkey cock that dared defy him. Once in a while one of them foolishly ventured to tell Turkey Proudfoot to mind his own affairs. And then there was sure to be a fight—a quick, short, noisy fray which ended always in the same fashion, with Turkey Proudfoot chasing the young cock out of the farmyard.