Katy raised her head and looked up into the Colonel's eyes. "Why, turkeys can't smoke, can they?" "Oh, no--of co'se not--I forgot. That's another story and I got them mixed up. Where was I? Oh, yes, when he got so sassy." Katy dropped her head on his shoulder again. Jim was now listening with all his might, his only fear being that Chad or Miss Nancy or the knocker on the front door would summon him before the story was ended. "Well," continued the Colonel, "that went on and on and on till there wasn't any livin' with him. Even dear Aunt Nancy couldn't get along with him, which is a dreadful thing to say of anybody. So one day"--here the Colonel's voice dropped to a tone of grave importance--"one day--Mammy Henny--that's the wife of Chad over there by the table, crep' up behind this wicked, sassy little turkey, when he was swellin' around so big he couldn't see his feet, and she grabbed him by the neck and two legs, and befo' he knew where he was, plump he went into a big coop, and the door was shut tight. He hollered and squawked and flapped his wings terrible, but that didn't make any diff'ence; in he went and there he stayed. He pushed with his long legs, and stuck his head out through the slats, and did all he could to get out, but it was no use. Next day Mammy Henny got a great big knife--oh, an awful long knife----" "How long?" asked the child. "Oh, a dreadful long knife--'most as long as Jim, here"--and the Colonel laid his hand on the boy's shoulder--"and she sharpened it on a big grindstone, and Mammy Henny put some corn in the little trough outside the slats, and when this bad, wicked turkey poked his head out--WHACK--went the knife, and off went his head, and he was dead--dead--dead!" As the solemn words fell from his lips, the Colonel broke into a laugh, and in a burst of tenderness threw his arms around the child and kissed her as if he would like to eat her up. Katy was clapping her hands now. "Oh, I'm just _too_ glad. And the poor little chickies--served him just right. I was afraid he'd get out and run away." The Colonel stole a look at Jim. The scrap stood looking into the fire, a wondering expression on his face. How much of the story was truth and how much fiction evidently puzzled Jim. During the telling everybody in the room, Fitz, Miss Nancy--all of us, in fact,--had been watching Katy's delight and Jim's eager brown face, turned to the Colonel, the whites of his eyes big as saucers. Watching, too, the Colonel's impartial manner to both of his listeners--black and white alike--the only distinction being that the black boy stood, while the white child lay nestled in his arms.