One day as the little girl went along, driving her turkeys to the plains, she heard a great commotion in the village. She stopped to see the cause of the excitement and found it to be a herald who was proclaiming from the house top, “The great festival will take place in four days. Come youths and maidens. Come one, come all. Join in the Dance of the Sacred Bird!”
Now this child had never been permitted to join in or even watch this great festivity of the people, and she longed with all her heart to see it.
“My dear turkeys, how I should love to watch this blessed festival, particularly the Dance of the Sacred Bird!” It was her custom to talk matters over with her turkeys, for they were the child’s only companions. She told them day after day of the wonderful festival that was to be, and how happy she would feel if she could join in the dance with the others. “But it is impossible, my beloved turkeys, ugly and ill-clad as I am,” she would say, when she saw the people of the village busy in cleaning their houses and preparing their clothes, laughing and talking as they made ready for the greatest holiday of the year.
The poor child never dreamed that her turkeys understood every word she said to them. But they did, and more.
The fourth day came, and all the people of the village went to join in the festivities. All but one, and that one was the poor little turkey girl who wandered about alone with her beloved flock. Soon she sat down upon a stone to rest, for she was sad at the thought of all the merrymaking while she was alone on the plains.
Suddenly it seemed to the little girl that one of her big gobblers, making a fan of his tail, and skirts of his wings, strutted up to her and, stretching out his neck said, “Little Mother, we know what your thoughts and wishes are and we are truly sorry for you. We wish that you, like all the other people of the village, might enjoy this holiday. Many times we have said to ourselves at night, after you had safely placed us in our house, that you are as worthy to enjoy these gayeties as anyone in the village. Little Mother, would you like to see this dance and even join in it and be merry with the rest?”
The poor child was at first surprised, then it all seemed so very natural that her turkeys should talk to her as she had always done to them, that she looked up and said, “My dear Gobbler, how glad I am that we may speak together. But tell me what it all means.”
“Listen well, then, for I speak the speech of my people. If you will drive us in early this afternoon, when the dance is most gay and the people are happiest, we will help you to make yourself so pretty and so beautifully dressed that no man, woman, or child among all those assembled at the dance will know you. Are you willing to do as we turkeys say?”
“Oh, my dear turkeys, why should you tell me of things that you well know I long to do but cannot by any possible means in the world?”