[THE TURKEY CHICKS ARE HATCHED]
Spring was always an anxious time for the Hen Turkeys who wanted to raise broods. Raising children is hard work and brings many anxieties with it. The mother is so much afraid that they will take cold, or eat too much, or not get enough to eat, or take something that is not good for children. There is also the fear that they may be careless and have some dreadful accident. And, worst of all, there is always the fear that they may be naughty and grow up the wrong sort of people.
These cares all mothers have, but the Turkey mothers have another care which is really very hard to stand, for the Gobblers do not like their children 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 break the egg, and if he meets a flock of tiny Turkey Chicks he will peck and hurt, perhaps even kill, all that he can of them. That is why the Hen Turkeys on the farm had always been in the habit of stealing away to lay their eggs in some secret place. One had even raised a fine brood in the middle of a nettle-patch the year before. She had slipped away from her friends and from the Gobbler day after day until she had laid thirteen eggs, and then had begun sitting. She had to sit as long as the Ducks do, and that is for twenty-eight days. You can imagine how tired she became, and how many times she had kept very still, hardly daring to move a feather, because she heard the Gobbler near and feared he would find and break her precious eggs.
Now she began to feel like laying, and walked off to the nettle-patch once more. She thought that having had such good luck there before was a reason for trying it again. She had hardly laid her fine large egg there 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, but he 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 his pocket. You can imagine how sad she felt. If there is one thing that a Hen Turkey likes better than taking long walks, it is raising Turkey Chicks. In spite of the weariness and the anxiety, she is very fond of it. And now this one found herself shut in and without her egg. It is true that, besides the pen, she could go into the scratching-shed and the big yard, yet even then there was the wired netting between her and the great world, and her friends were on the other side of the fence. She was just wondering if she could not fly over the fence and be free, when the Man returned and cut some of the long feathers from her 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 it in the shed and putting an egg into it. The Hen Turkey first thought that it was her own egg, but when the Man left and she could come nearer, she found that it was not. Instead, it was different from any she had ever seen. She tried sitting on it. “It feels all right,” she said in her gentle and plaintive voice. “If I am still here when I want to lay another, I will use this nest.”
In spite of her loneliness and sadness, the Hen Turkey managed to keep brave during the days that followed. The Man gave her plenty of good corn and clean water, and she had many visits with the Hens and their Chickens who lived in the pen next to hers and ran about all day in their yard. Of course she did not think them so interesting as Turkey Chicks, yet she liked to watch them and visit with them between the wires. It made her want a brood of her own even more than ever.