Page 6 - needham_wildturkey

My First Wild Turkey

It seems long ago, when I, a boy of 12 summers, killed my first wild
turkey. Since that day while I have seen something of the world as
I have crossed the continent from that childhood home in Kentucky to
the sunny slopes and shores of California, have hunted deer and turkey
in the mountains of Missouri, killed prairie chickens on the plains of
Kansas where the flocks were numbered by the thousands; and have
searched for larger game in the fastnesses and solitudes of the mountains
of California; have likewise seen something of social life along its lines
of intellectual and political achievements.; many of these associations
and experiences have been joyful and pleasant; yet withal, I do ,not think
I ever spent an hour so fully swallowed up with keen transitory bliss as
the one in which that spring morning 37 year ago when I, a white-headed
boy, triumphantly brought in my first "gobbler."
Some of the reminiscences of the days leading up to that hour would
perhaps be of interest from the contrast to these days of rush, strains
and electricity. To begin, myself and four cousins had had a frolic and
fun "treading out wheat." Your farmers' boys of these days would be
ignorant of the expression and it will necessitate an explanation. My father
AN EARLY DAY GATHERING AT "THE OLD BRICK" on his farm in the hills of Hardin County, Kentucky, had a large, old
fashioned barn, with a wide space in the center used as a treading floor.
Here the wheat sheaves were laid in a large circle and we boys, mounting ·
our horse, and leading another by our side would ride round and round,
while the action of the horses' hooves would separate the grain from the
husks in which it had grown.· This would be continµed for hour_s, while
my father and my Uncle Albert would stand opposite. to each other with
fork in hand to keep the scattering straw tossed back in the ring, and
occasionally loosening up and turning the entire mass so that it might
all be exposed to the trampling hooves.
Through the vicissitudes of all these years I can still see· those two .
grey bearded men; men who carried their hearts in the open, so full of
tender kindness that they could find time to, with twinkling eyes, take
part in the fun of the youth about them. What glorious days! We played
circus actors on our circling horses, wrestled in the straw, or practiced
acrobatic feats on the treading floor during the resting hour.
It was after days of such fun and frolic as this when the ever increasing
heap of grain and chaff in the center had grown to be, in my childish eyes,
almost a mountain that I well knew what was coming; after these days
of hilarity always came the doleful ones when for hour after hour with
blistered hands and aching back I would hang on to the revolving handle
of the old fashioned wheat fan, turning it round and round to produce
the vibration and wind necessary to separate the kernels from the chaff.
THE OLD BARN AS SEEN TODAY In such seasons I must admit that my repugnance to such drudgery
4 5