Moreover, they enjoy petting just as much as humans, and will greet with delight those who bring offerings of potatoes or apple-parings or bits of bread, or who will give their heads and necks the luxury of a good rub.
Charles Dudley Warner, in Being a Boy, pays a glowing tribute to the Martial Turkey:
“Perhaps it is not generally known that we get the idea of some of our best military manœuvres from the turkey. The deploying of the skirmish line in advance of an army is one of them. The drum major of our holiday militia companies is copied exactly from the turkey gobbler: he has the same splendid appearance, the same proud step, and the same martial aspect. The gobbler does not lead his forces in the field, but goes behind them, like the colonel of a regiment, so that he can see every part of the line and direct its movements. This resemblance is one of the most singular things in natural history. I like to watch the gobbler manœuvring his forces in a grasshopper field. He throws out his company of two dozen turkeys in a crescent-shaped skirmish line, the number disposed at equal distances, while he walks majestically in the rear. They advance rapidly, picking right and left, with military precision, killing the foe and disposing of the dead bodies with the same peck. Nobody has yet discovered how many grasshoppers a turkey will hold; but he is very much like a boy at a Thanksgiving dinner—he keeps on eating as long as the supplies last. The gobbler, in one of these raids, does not condescend to grab a single grasshopper—at least, not while anybody is watching him. But I suppose he makes up for it when his dignity can not be injured by having spectators of his voracity; perhaps he falls upon the grasshoppers when they are driven into a corner of the field. But he is only fattening himself for destruction; like all greedy persons, he comes to a bad end. And if the turkeys had any Sunday school, they would be taught this.”
Josh Billings, in his Animile Statistix, proved that he had been a close observer. He says in this comical medley:
“Kats are affectionate, they luv young chickens, sweet kream, and the best place in front of the fireplace.
“Dogs are faithful; they will stick to a bone after everybody haz deserted it.
“The ox knoweth hiz master’s krib, and that iz all he duz kno or care about hiz master.
“Munkeys are imitatiff, but if they kan’t imitate some deviltry they ain’t happy.
“The goose is like all other phools—alwuss seems anxious to prove it.
“Ducks are only cunning about one thing: they lay their eggs in sitch sly places that sumtimes they kan’t find them again themselfs.