The Times

The Kouka Lake Man Whose Fowl Was
Tall and His Story Likewise.

"Yes," said General Manager Stebins
in response to an inquiry, "this
ought to be a tolerable good country
for poultry around here, but I never
saw any hereabout to brag of. This
end of the lake doesn't seem to agree
with poultry as well as the other end
and they'd call a turkey that weighed
forty pounds here and stood four feet
high a big one. But having seen
what I have seen over in the town of
Benton, Yates county. I don't call a
turkey like that much of a one. I
used to have a fancy fruit and poultry
farm over there a few years ago, and
got some turkey eggs from the west to
experiment with. The father of the
eggs was a wild turkey and the mo-
ther of them a high stepping bronze
hen. I only had half a dozen of the
eggs, and, looking back at them now.
I believe that the essence of the whole
six was in some way stored up in one,
for only one hatched out. That one
was enough. At the age of three
months, when my other young tur-
keys, and prize ones at that, were still
creeping around in charge of their
mothers, this particular turkey evict-
ed his mother and all the other big
turkeys from their inclosure, and was
surprising the community by eating
corn from the bottom of an apple bar-
rel. while he stood on the ground out-
side. It wasn't long before he could
stand at my side and eat corn off the
top of my head with ease. and I don't
fall a great deal short of six feet.

"The turkey kept on getting taller
and spreading out until I got to won-
dering whether he wasn't a cross some
way between an ostrich and a giraffe.
for he put in mind of both of them
By the time he got so he could stand
at the side of the barn and pick grass-
hoppers off the hay through the mow
window I couldn't bring myself but to
think that he must have reached his
growth, sure, but he kept on reaching
up and spreading out. He got so final-
ly that he kinder o' run things on the
farm to suit himself. but he was so in
telligent and gentlemanly that I hat-
ed to take him in hand and curb him.
for he was as high spirited as he was
tall. But finally I had to give him a
set back.

"I had planted some extraordinary
fine melons that I was particularly
anxious to raise some specimens of,
and one day, about the time they were
getting ripe, I discovered a handsome
bronze hen turkey, that I had let do
pretty much as she pleased on the
place, picking away at one of the
melons. I had her shut up in a pen
at once, but having occasion to go
and look at her the next day. there I
found one of the melons in her pen,
and she dining off it with great rel-
ish. How that melon could have got
in there I couldn't think, for there
was no one on the place who would
dare to put it there. I kept a watch,
and was rewarded by seeing my mam-
moth gobbler stride over in the melon
patch, break off two of the nicest
melons, sock one of his long spurs in
one and the other spur in the other.
and fly with both melons to the hen's
cage and drop them into her. This
was gallant, of course, but it didn't
suit me.

"'John,' I says to my man, 'we
must break that big turkey's spirit.
Hitch him to the plow to-morrow,
and break up that new field with him.'

"My man did so, and the turkey
plowed all day. and I could see that it
cut him to the heart. That was just
what I wanted. and I hoped he would
take the hint. But, either because he
was mad and determined on revenge,
or out of the kindness of his heart, I
caught him in another affair that
made him a subject for still severer
discipline.

"I had a graft of particularly choice
apples, entirely new, and especially
cared for and watched. Some pre-
cious small boys in the vicinity had
cast longing glances at these apples,
but the fruit was in the very top of a
high tree, and the orchard was divided
from the nearest approach of the boys
by a deep pond twenty feet wide. I
thought those apples were safe
enough, but I hadn't taken my turkey
into account. Seeing the boys stand-
ing on the far bank of the pond one
day, gazing with watering mouths at
the luscious fruit, the turkey kindly
picked those apples from off the top of
the tree and reached them across the
pond on the end of his bill to the de-
lighted boys. When I discovered the
situation the last apple had been pick-
ed off and handed over. Then I or-
dered my men to put the turkey on
the horse power and make him run
the farm machinery for a day or two.
I could see plainly that this treadmill
work humiliated the proud bird to the
utmost, and although I was sorry, I
had to have discipline on the farm.
But the turkey only ran the mill
one day. The next morning when I
went in the barn I almost fainted
away, for there. hanging from his
neck by a rope which had been left
around a rafter in the roof of the
barn, was my splendid turkey, stone
dead. He had had to draw his legs
up almost to his breast to clear them
from the floor, so that he could suc-
ceed in his rash act. He had com-
mitted suicide rather than submit to
what he regarded as degrading labor.
The thought that my well meant dis-
cipline had driven the noble bird to
his death made it unpleasant for me to
run the farm any longer, so I gave it
up."

Hammondsport (N. Y.) Letter
to New York Sun