But mind, don't you
steal another pear or plum in this neighborhood!"
Addison opened the barn doors, and Alfred and Harvey took themselves off
without ceremony.
Apparently they kept their promise with us, for we heard of no further
losses of fruit in that neighborhood.
CHAPTER XXVIII
HALSTEAD'S GOBBLER
At that time a flock of twenty or thirty turkeys was usually raised at
the old farm every fall--fine, great glossy birds. Nearly every
farmhouse had its flock; and by October that entire upland county
resounded to the plaintive _Yeap-yeap, yop-yop-yop!_ and the noisy
_Gobble-gobble-gobble!_ of the stupid yet much-prized "national bird."
At present you may drive the whole length of our county and neither hear
nor see a turkey.
In their young days the old Squire and Judge Fessenden of Portland,
later in life Senator Fessenden, had been warm friends; and after the
old Squire chose farming for a vocation and went to live at the family
homestead, he was wont to send the judge a fine turkey for
Thanksgiving--purely as a token of friendship and remembrance. The judge
usually acknowledged the gift by sending in return an interesting book,
or other souvenir, sometimes a new five-dollar greenback--when he could
not think of an appropriate present.
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