Torchy and Vee
earnest way he has of stretchin' his ear you'd think that what you was
tellin' him was the very thing he'd been livin' all these years to hear.
Then he has that trick of throwin' in "My word!" and "Just fancy that!"
sort of admirin' and enthusiastic, until you almost believe that you're
a lot cleverer and smarter than you'd suspected.
So when I gets on the subject of how we ducked payin' war prices for
vegetables to the local profiteers by raisin' our own he wants to know
all about it. With the help of Vee's set of books and a little promptin'
from her I gives him an earful. I even tows him down cellar and points
out the various bins and barrels full of stuff we've got stowed away for
winter. And next I has to drag him out and exhibit the poultry side
line.
"Oh, I say!" exclaims Basil. "Isn't that perfectly rippin'! You have
fresh eggs right along?"
"All we can use," says I. "And we're eatin' the he--hens whenever we
want 'em. Ducks, too."
"How clever!" says Basil. "But you Americans are always so good at
whatever you take up. And you such a hard drivin' business man, too! I
don't see how you manage it."
"Oh, it comes easy enough once you get the hang of it," says I. "As a
matter of fact, I'm only just startin' in. Next thing I mean to have is
a lot of turkeys. Might as well live high."
"Turkeys!" says Basil. "And I've heard they were so difficult to raise.
But I've no doubt you will make a huge success with them."
"Guess I'll just have to show you," says I, waggin' my head.
I was for gettin' some turkey eggs right away and rushin' along a flock
so they'd be ready by Christmas, but both Vee and Leon insists that it
can't be done. Seems it's too late in the season or something. They want
to wait until next spring.
"Not me," says I. "I've promised your Auntie I'd raise turkeys and I
gotta deliver the goods. If we can't start 'em from the seed what's the
matter with gettin' some sprouts? Ain't anybody got any young turkeys
that need bringin' up scientific?"
Well, I set Joe Cirollo to scoutin' around and inside of a week he has
connected with half a dozen. They comes in a crate as big as a piano box
and we turns 'em loose in the chicken yard. When I paid the bill I was
sure Joe had been stuck about two prices, but after I've discovered what
they're askin' for turkeys in the city markets I has to take it back.
"Oh, well," says I, "if we can fatten 'em up maybe we'll come out
winners, after all."
"Sure!" says Joe. "We maka dem biga fat."
After I'd bought a few bags of feed though, I quit figurin'. I knew that
no matter how they was cooked they'd taste of money. All I was doubtful
of now was whether they was the right breed of turkeys.
"What's all that red flannel stuff on their necks?" I asks Joe. "Ain't
got sore throats, have they!"
"Heem?" says Joe. "No, no. Dey gooda turk. All time data way."
"All right," says I, "if it's the fashion. I don't eat the neck,
anyway."
I couldn't get Leon at all excited over my gobblers, though. All he'll
do is shake his head dubious. "They walk with such pride and still they
behave so foolish," says he.
"It ain't their manners I'm fond of," says I, "so much as it is their
white meat. Even at that, when it comes to foolish notions, they've got
nothing on your ducks."
"Mais non," says Leon, meaning nothing sensible, "you do not understand
the duck perhaps. Me, I raised them as a boy in Perronne. But the
turkey! Pouff! He is what you call silly in the head. One cannot say
what they will do next. Anything may happen to such birds."
He makes such a fuss over the way they hog the grain at feedin' time
that I have to have a separate run built for 'em. You'd almost think he
was jealous. But Joe, on the other hand, treats 'em like pets. I don't
know how many times a day he feeds 'em, and he's always luggin' one up
to me to show how heavy they're gettin'. I was waitin' until they got
into top notch condition before springin' 'em on Basil Pyne. I meant to
get a gasp out of him when I did.
Finally I set a day for the private view and asked the Pynes to come
over special. Basil, he's all prepared to be thrilled as I tows him out.
"But you don't mean to say this is your first venture at turkey
raising?" he demands.
"Ab-so-lutely," says I.
"Strordinary!" says Basil.
At the end of the turkey run though I finds Joe starin' through the wire
with a panicky look on his face. "Well, Joe," says I, "anything wrong
with the flock?"
"I dunno," says he. "Maybe da go bughouse, maybe da got jag on. See!"
Blamed if it don't look like he'd made two close guesses. Honest, every
one of them gobblers was staggerin' 'round, bumpin' against each other
and runnin' into the fence, with their tails spread and their long necks
wavin' absurd. A 3 a.m. bunch of New Year's Eve booze punishers
couldn't have given a more scandalous exhibition.
"My word!" says Basil.
Course, it's up to me to produce an explanation. Which I does prompt.
"Oh, that's nothing!" says I. "They're just tryin' the duck waddle,
imitatin' their neighbors in the next run. Turkeys always do that sooner
or later if you have ducks near 'em. They keep at it until they're
dizzy."
"Really, now?" says Basil. "I never heard that before."
"Not many people have," says I. "But they'll get over it in an hour or
so. Look in tomorrow and you'll see."
Basil says he will. And after he's gone I opens the court martial.
"Joe," I demands, "what you been feedin' them turks?"
It took five minutes of cross examination before I got him to remember
that just before breakfast he'd sneaked out and swiped a pail of stuff
that he thought Leon was savin' for his ducks. And what do you guess?
Well, him and Leon had gone into the home-made wine business last fall,
utilizin' all them grapes we grew out in the back lot, and only the day
before they'd gone through the process of rackin' it from one barrel
into another. It was the stuff that was left in the bottom that Joe had
swiped for his pets.
"Huh!" says I. "And now you've not only disgraced those turkeys for life
but you've made me hand Mr. Pyne some raw nature-fakin' stuff that
nobody but a fool author would swallow."
"I mucha sorry," says Joe, hangin' his head.
"All right," says I. "I expect you meant well. But it was a bum hunch.
Now see they have plenty of water to drink and by mornin' maybe they'll
sober up."
I meant to keep an eye on 'em myself for the rest of the day, but right
after luncheon Auntie blows in again, to pay a farewell visit before
startin' South, and the turkeys slipped my mind. Not until she asks how
I'm gettin' on with my flock of quail did I remember.
"Oh, quail!" says I. "No, I had to ditch that. Couldn't get the right
sort of eggs."
Auntie smiles sarcastic. "What a pity!" says she. "But the various kinds
of poultry you were going in for? Did you----"
"Did I?" says I. "Say, you just come out and---- Well, Leon, anything
you want special?"
"Pardon, m'sieu," says old Leon, scrapin' his foot, "but--but the
turkeys."
"Yes, I know," says I. "They're doing that new trot Joe's been teaching
'em."
"But no, m'sieu," says Leon. "They have become deceased--utterly."
"Wha-a-a-at?" says I. "Oh, oh, I guess it ain't as bad as that."
"Pardon," says Leon, "but I discover them steef, les pieds dans le ciel.
Thus!" And he illustrates by holdin' both hands above his head.
"Perhaps it would be best to investigate," suggests Auntie. "I have no
doubt Leon is right. Turkeys require expert care and handling, and when
you were so sure of raising them I quite expected something like this."
"Yes, I know you did," says I. "Anyway, let's take a look."
And there they were, all six of 'em, with their feet in the air, and as
stiff as if they'd just come from cold storage.
"Like somebody had thrown in a gas attack on 'em," says I. "Good night,
turks! You sure did make it unanimous, didn't you?"
I expect my smile was kind of a sickly performance, for the last person
I'd have wanted to be in on the obsequies was Auntie. I will say,
though, that she don't try to rub it in. No, she tells of similar cases
she's known of when she was a girl, about whole flocks bein' poisoned by
something they'd found to eat.
"The only thing to do now," says she, "is to save the feathers."
"Eh?" says I, gawpin'.
"The long tail and wing feathers can be used for making fans and
trimming hats," says Auntie, "while the smaller ones are excellent for
stuffing pillows. They must be picked at once."
"Oh, I'm satisfied to call 'em a total loss," says I.
Auntie wouldn't have it, though. She sends Leon for a big apron and a
couple of baskets and has me round up Joe to help. When I left they
were all three busy and the turkey feathers were coming off fast. All
there was left for me to do was to go in and break the sad news to Vee.
"As a turkey raiser, I'm a flivver," says I.
"But I can't see that it's your fault at all," says Vee.
"Can't you?" says I. "Ask Auntie."
If the next day hadn't been Sunday, I could have sneaked off to town and
dodged the little talk Auntie insists on givin' about the folly of
amateurs tacklin' jobs they know nothing about. As it is I has to stick
around and take the gaff. Then about ten o'clock Basil Pyne has to show
up and reopen the subject.
"Oh, by the way," says he, "how are the turkeys this morning? Are they
still practicing that wonderful duck walk you were telling me about?"
Auntie has just fixed an accusin' eye on me, and I was wonderin' if it
would be any sin to take Basil out back somewhere and choke him, when in
rushes old Leon with a wild look on his face. He's so excited that he's
almost speechless and all he can get out is a throaty gurgle.
"For the love of soup, let's have it," says I. "What's gone wrong now?"
"O-o-o la la!" says Leon. "O-o-o la la!"
"That's right, sing it if you can't say it," says I.
"Parbleu! Nom de Dieu! Les dindons!" he gasps.
"Ah, can the ding-dong stuff, Leon," says I, "and let's hear the English
of it."
"The--the turkeys!" he pants out.
And that did get a groan out of me. "Once more!" says I. "Say, have a
heart! Can't anybody think of a more cheerful line? Turkeys! Well, shoot
it. They're still dead, I suppose?"
"But no," says Leon. "They--they have return to life."
"Oh come, Leon!" says I. "You must have been sampling some of them wine
dregs yourself. Do you mean to say----"
"If M'sieu would but go and observe," puts in Leon. "Me, I have seen
them with my eye. Truly they are as in life."
"Why, after we picked them last night I saw you throw them over the
fence," says I.
"Even so," says Leon. "But come."
Well, this time we had a full committee--Vee, Auntie, Basil, Madame
Battou, old Leon and myself--and we all trails out to the back lot. And
say, once again Leon is right. There they are, all huddled together on
the lowest branch of a bent-over apple tree and every last one of 'em as
shy of feathers as the back of your hand. It's the most indecent poultry
exhibit I ever saw.
"My word!" says Basil, starin' through his thick glasses.
"That don't half express it, Basil," says I.
"But--but what happened to them?" he insists.
"I hate to admit it," says I, "but they had a party yesterday. Uh-huh.
Wine dregs. And they got soused to the limit--paralyzed. Then, on the
advice of a turkey expert"--here I glances at Auntie--"we decided that
they were dead, and we picked 'em to conserve their feathers. Swell
idea, eh? Just a little mistake about their being utterly deceased, as
Leon put it. They were down, but not out. Look at the poor things now,
though."
And then Vee has to snicker. "Aren't they just too absurd!" says she.
"See them shiver."
"I should think they'd be blushin'," says I. "What's the next move?" I