Charles O'Dooley was five years old and his sister, Grace, was seven years
old when their friendship with, of all things, a doggone turkey began. Seems their
uncle raised turkeys and when they visited his farm one day, he explained that it
takes 25 days for turkey eggs to hatch. He gave them two turkey eggs to take home
with them and told them to find a setting hen to place them under.
	They took the eggs home, placed the two eggs under a setting hen and
waited. And waited. Twenty-five days seems like 25 years when you're their age.
On the 26th day, in mid-April of 1932, they raced out to the chicken house to see if
the eggs had hatched. And there in the chicken yard was the old hen, clucking up a
storm. And two fluffy fuzz-balls were dashing around and under her, chirping like
crazy at the new world they had entered.
	A few weeks later, as the two little turkeys lost their fuzz and gained real
feathers, that poor old hen must have thought she sure created two of the ugliest or
at least two of the oddest looking chickens in the world.
	Charles and Grace thought the two turkeys, one a boy (called a "tom") and
one a girl (called a hen) were beautiful. They immediately named them Tom and
Alice.
	Even from the start, Mr. O'Dooley explained to his young son and daughter
that turkeys were made for eating. And that, come next December, one of those two
little turkeys would wind up as the main course for Christmas dinner.
	Charles and Grace didn't pay much attention to what might happen such a
long time away. Right then they were concerned about where the young turkeys and
their adopted mother would live, since they might be eventually rejected by the
chickens. So they cleaned out and fixed up an old doghouse for the three to live in
by themselves.
	Their dad warned them, though, that turkeys were very difficult to raise. He
cited two reasons: first, they often caught diseases and

died; and second, they were the dumbest bird ever created, sometimes standing in
the rain with their mouths open until they literally drown themselves. And, sure
enough, a few weeks later--after a heavy rain--Charles and Grace found Alice dead
in the chicken yard.
	Tom, though, grew bigger and stronger. He grew a long beard and strutted
around as though he owned the farm. And one day he chased his adopted mother out
of the doghouse, and soon afterwards he quit associating with the chickens at all. He
spent his days wandering off to the nearby woods where he scratched for juicy grub
worms. That fall he eat his fill of chestnuts that had fallen to the ground.
	Early in December, Mr. O'Dooley again reminded his children that Tom had a
dinner date with them on Christmas day. This time Charles and Grace knew time
really was running out for their pet turkey.



	So they came up with a plan. Well, actually, Grace came up with the plan and
her younger brother went along with it. The plan was to kidnap Tom just before
Christmas and take him far back into the woods. There they would pen him up in a
small cave, one that had a tiny spring providing a constant source of water for him
to drink.
	Three days before Christmas, they sprang into action. They took an old,
discarded piece of chicken wire and placed it across the mouth of the small cave.
They sneaked a sack of corn out of the barn and stashed in near the cave so they
could feed Tom each day. 	
	Then, just two days before ol' Tom was scheduled to become their Christmas
dinner, they quietly caught him at the edge of the woods and picked him up and
raced deeper into the woods. When they reached their secret hiding place, they
removed the chicken wire from the entrance of the cave and placed Tom inside. And
they poured some corn and a dozen or so chestnuts on ground for him to eat. Then
they put the chicken wire back over the entrance to the cave and walked back home.
	The day before Christmas, Mr. O'Dooley went out to find Tom and pen him
up so everything would be ready on Christmas day. But, of course, he could not find
Tom anywhere. 
	"Have you children seen ol' Tom today?" he asked his children.
	"No," Grace said. "I haven't seen him today. Have you lil' brother?"
	"Me? Oh, no, I haven't seen him today, either."
	The children told the truth. They hadn't seen Tom the turkey that day. Not
yet, anyway. And they were careful, later in the day, to make sure their father was
busy cutting wood for the fire place when they sneaked down to feed their pet.
	On Christmas day, Mr. O'Dooley again looked everywhere for Tom. And,
again, he could not find him. 
	"I guess that ol' turkey probably wandered too far away and a fox or a coyote
got him. Too bad. Guess we'll have a chicken for Christmas dinner instead of a
turkey."
	Charles and Grace dared not show their real feelings in front of their father.
But when he went out to kill a chicken, they went out back and danced a little jig.
Their plan worked, and Tom was saved. At least for today.
	Two days later, though, a blizzard swept across the land. They snow was so
deep that it was impossible for them to get to the cave to feed Tom. The storm
lasted nearly a week.
	Finally, on the first day of sunshine, Charles and Grace sneaked back into the
woods to visit Tom. He was gone. The chicken wire was down and the cave was
empty.
	Charles burst into tears. "Some ol' fox broke in and ate poor Tom."
	Grace, being a mature seven-year-old, studied the situation. "No, it looks like
the wire was pushed out, not in. I think maybe Tom just got lonely and hungry and
pushed his way out. He's pretty big, ya know."
	Winter passed into spring. And one fine April day, Mrs. O'Dooley was
planting flowers along the south side of the house. She heard a familiar
"gobble-gobble" and looked up to see two turkeys about fifty yards away. She
immediately yelled for the children to come see the turkeys, one of which she
thought might just be ol' Tom.
	And it was. Tom was bigger than ever. And he had taken a mate, a
nice-looking hen turkey. 
	Both Charles and Grace raced toward the turkeys, yelling, "Tom! Tom!
You've come home."
	Well, now, Tom hadn't been around human-type people for several months.
And his female companion had never been around them. So he instinctively took off
running for his old home, the doghouse, and she followed him right inside.
	The children put feed out for them, and put fresh straw in the doghouse. And
within a few days, both Tom and his female friend let the children walk right up to
them and pet them.
	Tom and his mate produced 12 little turkeys that year. And they lived right
there in that doghouse for five more years, free to come and go as they wanted.
	Then one day, when Charles was ten and Grace was twelve, they noticed that
Tom did not return from the woods at the end of the day. The next morning they
found him lying near his favorite feeding spot at the end of the woods. And they
buried him in the cave that had once been his home.

_______________________________________________________________________End.
Based on Charles B. O'Dooley's story, "The Christmas Turkey That Wasn't," in
Good Old Days Christmas Memories (Berne, Ind.: House of White Birches,
1995, pp. 147-49).