Looking down the road he saw a woman who seemed much excited running in their direction and when they drew near enough to distinguish who it was, they found it was Eddie’s mother, looking for him. He had not come back from the errand on which she had sent him, telling him to hurry home. As he was an obedient son, she feared some ill had befallen him and was searching for him. How she cried for joy when she had him in her arms and knew he was safe! She declared she wanted to see Stubby and Button and pet them and give them the biggest chicken dinner they had ever had to show her appreciation.
“They are such smart animals, I know they will understand everything you say to them, and enjoy and thank you for the dinner,” said Mr. Watson’s hired man. “I’ll bring them over with me to-morrow when I pass your house on my way to the mill.”
Thus another good deed was added to the long list of those done by Stubby and Button as the years went by.
CHAPTER XVIII
CATCHING THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY
IT was the night before Thanksgiving rather than Christmas, and in the house all was quiet as a mouse. But not so in the barnyard. Everything there was confusion and hubbub for the biggest, fattest turkey gobbler of the flock was to be captured and killed for the Thanksgiving feast. He had lived to see all his flock slain with the exception of a young gobbler and three or four turkey hens. Consequently when he saw a boy and a man come into the barnyard and walk toward him, holding out hands filled with corn and wheat, he had his suspicions. He had seen sixty or seventy members of his flock go up to men to eat from their hands only to be grabbed by the neck and carried off, never to be seen again. It was because of this that when anyone offered him anything to eat, no matter what it was, he drew in his feathers, stuck out his neck and ran for dear life and hid until they had left the barnyard.
It was growing dusk now and he had just fallen into a doze as he rested in his usual roosting place on the lower limb of an old oak tree behind the woodpile. Suddenly he was rudely awakened by someone catching hold of one of his legs. He roused with a start to find it was a big boy trying to capture him. With a spasm of fear he flapped his wings and tried to fly to a higher limb, but he was unable to do that for the boy grasped one of his legs firmly and pulled him back.
Just then the gobbler spied Billy Whiskers standing by the woodpile and he gobbled for him to aid him. “Save me! Save me, Billy!”
In a flash Billy ran up the woodpile on which the boy was standing. This started the wood to rolling, and the boy was forced to release the turkey’s leg or have his own broken in a fall.
“Oh, Billy, why can’t you mind your own business and not stick your nose into what doesn’t concern you?” he exclaimed.