Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/98

64 Homer’s laugh was an embarrassed one. “I ’m goin’ to put Dan'l an’ Gettysburg through their tricks right in the store window.”

“You be n’t?” and the mother looked in rapt admiration at her clever son.

“I be!” answered Homer, triumphantly.

I don't know, boy, jest what I think o’ it,” said his mother, slowly. “’T ain't exactly a—a gentlemanly sort o’ thing to do; be it?”

“I reckon I be n’t a gentleman, mother,” replied Homer, with his jolly laugh.

“Tell me all about it.”

“Well, 1 was feedin’ the turkeys when Mr. Richards druv in. He said he heered I had some trick turkeys an’ he ‘d like to see ‘em. Lucky enough, I had n’t fed ’em; they was awful hungry, an’ I tell you they never did their tricks better.”

“What did Mr. Richards say?”

“He thought it was the most amazin’ thing he'd ever seen in his life. He said he would n’t have believed turkeys had enough gumption in them to learn a trick o’ any kind.”

“Did you tell him how you ’d fussed with them ever since they was little chicks?”

“I did. He wuz real interested, an’ he offered me three dollars to give a show three times a day, He’s got a window half as big as this kitchen. He 'll have it wired in, an’ the turkeys ‘ll stay there at his expense. Along before Christmas he ‘ll give me twenty-two cents a pound for ‘em.”

“Well, I vow, Homer, it ’s pretty good pay.

“Mr. Richards give me a commutation on the railroad. He’s to send after the turkeys an’ bring ’em back, so I won't have any expense.”

Homer rose and sauntered about the kitchen, picking up the apples that had rolled in all directions over the floor.

A week before Thanksgiving, the corner in front of Finch & Richards’s great market looked as it was wont to look on circus day: only the eyes of the crowds were not turned expectantly up Main Street; they were riveted on a window in the big store, Passers-by tramped out into the snowy street when they reached the mob at the corner. The front of the store was decorated with a fringe of plump turkeys. One window held a glowing mountain of fruit and vegetables arranged by some one with a keen eye to color—monstrous pumpkins, splendid purple cabbages, rosy apples and russet pears, green and purple grapes, snowy stalks of celery, and corn ears yellow as sunshine. Crimson beets neighbored with snowy parsnips, scarlet carrots, and silk-wrapped onions. Egg-plants gleaming like deep-hued amethysts circled about magnificent cauliflowers, while red and yellow bananas made gay mosaic walks through the fruit mountain. Wherever a crack or a cranny had been left was a mound of ruby cranberries, fine raisin bunches, or brown nuts.

It was a remarkable display of American products; yet, after the first “Ah” of admiration, people passed on to the farther window, where six plump turkeys, supremely innocent of a feast-day fate, flapped their wings or gobbled impertinently when a small boy laid his nose flat against the window. Three times a day the crowd grew twenty deep. It laughed and shouted and elbowed one another good-naturedly, for the Thanksgiving spirit was abroad. Men tossed children up on their stalwart shoulders, then small hands clapped ecstatically, and small legs kicked with wild enthusiasm.

The hero of the hour wasa freckled, red-haired boy, who came leaping through a wire door with an old broom over his shoulders. Every turkey waited for him eagerly, hungrily! They knew that each old familiar trick—learned away back in chickhood—would earn a good feed. When the freckled boy began to whistle, or when his voice rang out in a shrill order, it was the signal for Dan’l Webster, for Gettysburg, for Amanda Ann, Mebitable, Nancy, or Farragut to step to the center of the stage and do some irresistibly funny turn with a turkey’s bland solemnity. None of the birds had attacks of stage-fright; their acting was as self-possessed as if they were in the old farm-yard with no audience present but Mrs. Tidd to lean smiling over the fence with a word of praise and the coveted handful of golden corn.

With every performance the crowd grew more dense, the applause more uproarious, and the Thanksgiving trade at Finch & Richards’s bigger than it had been in years. Each night Homer took the last train home, tired but