Last evening, while a number of us were sitting on the veranda after dinner, a large turkey gobbler came Stalking down the drive in front of the officers' quarters.
Hal was squatted down, hound fashion, at the top of the steps, and of course saw the gobbler at once.
There won't be much left of me when that old gobbler gets through with me.
Who knew but that a gobbler would gobble up young Master Meadow Mouse if he had a chance?
Not only was Turkey Proudfoot the biggest gobbler on the farm, but he had a fierce and lordly look about him.
Still, most of the farmyard folks insisted that the missing gobbler had met with an accident.
And there wasn't another young gobbler on the farm that was likely to have a tail out of the ordinary.
Being very peevish, after his first meeting with the peacock, Turkey Proudfoot went behind the barn and found a young gobbler and gave him a terrible drubbing.
And when he had nothing more important to do he often stood still and listened in the hope of hearing some upstart gobbler testing his voice in a neighboring field.
Joe, fortunately, heard the drumming and clucking of a turkey gobblerbefore he was seen of them.
This done, he took a couple of pot shots, bringing down a young gobbler each time.
The boys always thought that if they had not rushed up all together and scared the gobbler off, he would have torn the boy to pieces, but very likely he would not.
Once when the fellows were gathering haws out there they began to have fun with a flock of turkeys, especially the gobblers, and one boy got an old gobbler to following him while he walked slowly backward, and teased him.
When he reached it, his head went down and his heels flew into the air, and then the gobbler hopped upon him and began to have some of the fun himself.
I need not have been in such hot haste: for on getting near enough to the gobbler to be able to judge of his condition, I saw that he was dead!
I kept on; but only to have my chagrin increased, by seeing the gobbler go much faster than myself.
It soon occurs, not only to one, but to all: and a fearful fluttering and screaming takes place, with a confusion of ideas, that prevents the oldest and wisest gobbler of the gang from finding his way out again.
I remembered a chapter of my ornithology, studied among the pine barrens of Tennessee, where I had observed a turkey-gobbler distance the hounds against the steep slope of a ridge; and do it with perfect ease.
Now, scatter out in pairs, and if you can knock down a gobbler or two we'll have a turkey bake to-night.
But one gobbler was so fat that he was unable to fly over a hundred yards and was still in the open.
A turkey gobbler sitting on a nest of green peaches.
A turkey gobbler had mysteriously disappeared from one of the neighboring plantations and the local slaves were accused of commeting the fowl to a boiling pot.
One of the slaves accidently opened the safe and, Behold, there was Mr. Gobbler peacefully seated on a number of green peaches.
The ducks and the drake stood listening to all this talk, and as the gobbler walked away the drake said: "I cannot understand why any one should think of being king when I know so much of the world.
The hens stood in groups of threes and fours all around the yard, the turkeys were gathered around the big gobbler and seemed to be talking very earnestly.
Madam Duck to the turkey gobbler as she went on her way to the pond.
The poor hens tagged along after the turkeys, for the gobbler insisted upon parading all around the yard.
A day or two after, when the gobbler happened to meet Madam Duck, she said: "I hear that Gray Hen has left us.
And so it was decided, and the gobbler was the first one to go on trial.
The gobbler flew down and the turkeys followed and the master drove the gander and his family back to the yard.
The gobbler walked away, spreading out his wings and letting them drag on the ground and gobbling very loudly.
But the oldgobbler was saved his trouble, for in a few minutes he saw Gray Hen coming down the path toward him.
And thatgobbler is the only friend I have in the world except you.
Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken away.
She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen one over there, thought perhaps she could get him.
He could hear Rattleton and Robinson whooping wildly, but he knew no time was to be lost in getting away, so he caugh up the gobbler and ran.
But the gobblerwas a hard customer and he showed fight, whereupon there was a general squawking and squalling.
Frank heard the farmer calling for him to stop, but, with Mr. Gobbler dangling on his back, he fled the faster.
Quick as a flash he swung the gobbler around and struck his challenger a smashing blow with it, knocking him sprawling.
He had found the turkey roost and had selected the biggest old gobbler of them all.
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.
I like to watch the gobbler maneuvering his forces in a grasshopper-field.
In the meantime the other hen was killed by Whopper, while Jed Sanborn took his gun and poked the gobbler out of the tree crotch and despatched him.
But the turkey was a gobbler and of good size, and he was very proud when he had the game over his shoulder in true sportsman's style.
There was a gobbler and six or seven hens, and they were roosting on several limbs close to the ground.
Two hens fluttered around, and the gobblerremained in the tree, caught between two branches and breathing his last.
The gobbler was the largest I ever killed, not indeed one of the huge thirty-five pounders, but a fat, heavy turkey, and quite a load for a boy.
My gobbler came down, bounced up again, got going--when with the second barrel I knocked him cold.
At that moment a young gobbler ran swiftly down the slope and stopped to peer around, his long neck stretching.
With my eye on my gobbler I seemed to see the air full of big, black, flying things.
I saw one old gobbler running wildly around as if lost, but I did not shoot at him because he seemed to be in line with the direction which R.
We went up on the hill where you killed your gobbler last night.
Next I saw the white gobblerrunning up the rocky hillside.
One was a gobbler of considerable size, with beautiful white and bronze feathers.
There was Joyce, running toward the house, with the gobbler after her, and Don coming behind.
If it's nothing else, the old turkey gobbler chases me around the tree.
The gobbler was right at Joyce's heels, when suddenly the little girl dodged behind a tree and began to go round and round it, keeping the tree between her and the gobbler.
Joyce was bending over, watching the industrious little ant, when suddenly the gobbler perched upon her back and began to beat her with his wings.
When Grandma had comforted Joyce, she explained that it was the little girl's red dress that the gobbler didn't like.
She never did; and so the gobbler did not bother her any more.
The old turkey gobbler came strutting toward them; but they did not notice.
Then a young gobbler came in front and took a good look at me.
The cause of this is: every old gobbler that dares to open its mouth to gobble in the spring is within the hearing of farmers, negroes, and others, and is a marked bird.
He told me the gobbler had stretched out his feet to alight on his head and frightened him so he never thought of his gun, and was so dazed that the gobbler was gone before he recovered his wits.
At the same time these inquisitive birds were looking me over, my rifle was trained on an immense gobbler within eighty yards strutting in plain view.
One of the young men, quite a hunter, remarked: "That beats all the maneuvering with a gobbler I have ever seen and was well worth the long ride to witness.
If the gobbler is still gobbling after you have seated yourself, sit quietly until he flies down; that is best.
At the shot, my gobbler tumbled over, but quickly got up and made off at a lively run with one wing hanging.
Bechstein refers to the old German fable or superstition that a hen turkey lays as many eggs as the gobbler has feathers in the under tail-coverts, which, as we know, vary in number.
When an old gobbler does take to this hermitlike custom, he is the most difficult bird to bag in the world.
It would take an expert turkey hunter to circumvent this bird] By these fights onegobbler establishes his claim as lord of a certain range, which no other gobbler will dispute during the rest of the season.
I have often seen the wild gobbler strut on his roost, and I have shot them in such an act when in full round strut.
I doubt not many veteran turkey hunters have in mind some old gobbler who seemed invincible; some bird that had puzzled them for three or four years without their learning the tricks of the cunning fellow.
So, if you will watch, you shall see a real wild turkey in the tamest old gobbler on the farm.
But most of you live close enough to the country, so that you could easily find a farmer who would invite you out to see his prize gobbler and his great hissing gander.
I want you to watch the old gobbler turkey take his family to bed--to roost, I mean.
I hope it is a cow then, and not a tough old bull," remarked Sandy, who was munching on his hoe cake and cold turkey, the last of a fine gobbler his ready musket had fetched down some days back.
So if he brings any turkey with him it’ll be a bearded old gobbler as fat as butter.
Judge for yourself,” he replied, entering the open space and dropping a huge turkeygobbler on the ground.
If I had, I shouldn’t have been so ready to promise you a gobbler as I was.
And by way of making sure, as it’s coming on daylight now, I’ll go and get that turkey gobbler I was speaking of.
So I expect to see him back here before we have breakfast ready, with a turkey gobbler slung over his shoulders.
If that turkey gobbler had known the sort of things with which Billy was accustomed to holding his own, he never would have issued the challenge.
The guineas were clucking, the turkeygobbler strutting, the hens calling, the chickens cheeping, the light streamed down straight overhead and the bees began to hum.
A big snowy turkey gobbler resented the small intruder in his especial preserves, and with spread tail and dragging wings came toward him threateningly.
And after that he said good-by and went upon his way, and by and by he met a big Turkey Gobbler who was being fattened for Thanksgiving.
