“Now, look ’ere Bill, you don’t want to be sore ’bout that little shoot’n last fall. I gave all them turkeys to some poor people, an’ they done a lot o’ good. I just happened to hit ’em, an’ I couldn’t repeat that performance in a hundred years.”
“You bet you couldn’t ’round ’ere if we seen you first,” replied Bill. “I’d hate to furnish turkeys fer you to shoot at fer a hundred years, an I’d hate to be the poor people wait’n fer you to feed the birds to ’em. Say, what you got up yer sleeve this trip? Sump’n still funnier, I s’pose.”
Posey was busy with a customer, and Varney remained with us on the platform. He produced some murky and doubtful cigars that Bill declared looked like genuine “El Hempos” and we smoked and talked for some time. Pop Wilkins joined us, and Sophy Perkins arrived at the store to purchase some calico. She bestowed a reserved nod and a feline glance on Varney, and greeted the rest of the party with scant politeness. She stood just inside, near the entrance, and utilized the time Posey was spending with his other customer in listening to our conversation. She soon became so absorbed in it that she forgot all about her calico and remained riveted to her point of vantage. Posey respected her preoccupation and busied himself with other things after his first visitor had left through the side door.
The chairs outside were tipped against the long window sill, and the party was making itself comfortable in the spring sunshine. Varney was relating a wondrous tale, and was fully aware of the acute eavesdropping within. Many of the romantic touches in his discourse were apparently for Sophy’s benefit.
“I got a long letter from a friend of mine,” said Josh, as he felt through his inside pockets, “an’ I wish I had it with me, but I guess I’ve left it somewhere. He’s making a trip ’round the world an’ ’e writes me that in India he ran across a marvellous breed of turkeys. You know turkeys originated in India, an’ they come from there first about five hundred years ago. These strange birds he writes about live away up in the Himalaya mountains and are pure white. They’re much larger than ordinary turkeys, an’ their color adapts ’em to the snowy peaks, an’ protects ’em from the natives when they pursue ’em out o’ the valleys, where they go to eat frogs along the water courses. They live almost entirely on frogs when they c’n git ’em. When they’re disturbed they wing back to the frozen heights, an’ sometimes don’t come down for a year. When they’re hunted up there they fly from crag to crag an’ they’re almost invisible, an’ its a funny thing, but their meat’s all white, too. They ain’t no dark meat on ’em like there is on common turkeys.
“They lay enormous eggs an’ the eggs generally have two yolks. Sometimes twins hatch out of ’em. The double yolks give an extra amount of vitality to the young turks, which is necessary up among the cold rocks where they’re hatched.
“The eggs have a delicious spicy flavor that comes from the spearmint and other pungent plants that the frogs nibble along the streams. The eggs are highly prized by epicures, an’ there’s a Frenchman livin’ in Bombay that pays two rupees apiece for all ’e c’n git of ’em. He makes what ’e calls ‘omelets de frog secondaire,’ or something like that, with ’em, an’ ’e says there’s nothing like ’em. With him its hen eggs no more.
“There’s a sacred caste in India called the Brahmins, and they believe that these white turkeys are what they call reincarnations of a supernatural race of beings that ruled the earth before man existed.
“Somebody ought to import some o’ them turkeys an’ breed ’em in this country. Along a river like this they’d find plenty to eat an’ they wouldn’t be no expense at all. My friend writes that ’e hopes to bring two or three back with him when ’e comes home, an’ I’m anxious to see ’em. Oh, yes, come to think of it, I put a photograph in my pocket book that was in the letter.”
Varney thereupon produced a kodak print of a stately white bird. Some figures in oriental costume, somewhat out of focus and indistinct, were grouped back of it in the picture. Varney explained that these were Brahmins and native hunters.