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Show ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo IfX TURKEYLESS THANKSGIVING 9 The Story of the Three Birds Thut Were Three 5 Times Won and Lost. 2 SI 18 ajrHi:N tho railroad bulldeis (C&ffiiK '"vai,L,(1 lno Krpnl north-ftWVpf,') north-ftWVpf,') west, not seeking n passage wWxty to the Tactile const hut VlV rather anticipating the do-5"jj do-5"jj velopment of an agrlcul- tural empire which must have nitericri of steel, they wero quit kly rollowed bj the saint' class of hard? settlers Hint hnd moved westward since the early das Through the generations that movement move-ment has proceeded, slowly at first but ever inerenslng In speed and volume, over the Allcghonlcs, among the woodland and meadow stretches of Ohio and Indiana, across tho praliles of Illinois ami lown, through tho Wisconsin and Minnesota Min-nesota fotcsts to tho valleys of Dakota Da-kota nnd on to I'uget sound. The descendants de-scendants of New- Hnglnnders have always al-ways been noticeable In tho advancing tide of home makers and fortune-builders along those parallels of latitude Thanksgiving day as an annual November No-vember celebration marked by family reunions and feasting Is ono of tho good things that have persisted among transplanted New Kngiand customs. It Is now a national event, most generally gener-ally honored. And tho distinguishing featuro of this fenBt-duy Is the trag edy of that royal fowl, tho turkey, A Thanksgiving day without turkey Is n church service without lesson, music, or benediction. Thoro are makeshift collations, of course, that pass for din nors with those not to tho munner born, but tho sons of tho sons of New England realize their hollovvness Not one of these but would rather go through trials by flro nnd water rath er thnn onduin tho absence of that gloilous lieHil-pIoco from tho Thanksgiving Thanks-giving board. In tlm Hist years of tho 'SO's two great rival railroad companies wore hastening to tccuio for themselves In eastern D.ikotn the rich Melds of a trittllr jot to come Into being. Ilnth had cutorod tho wondci fully fertllo James river alloy from tho east, and as one tin tied Its lino northward from Union the other tinned Kouthwnrd from Abetdeen, nnd the near approach of winter nnd tho close of nctlvo opcr otlons found the two competing con striictlon camps only n few miles opart. With tho advance of the rail roads or a lltllo ptecedlng them had conio settl'iis upon the government do-inuln, do-inuln, and though farmers and whent- misers wcio in tho von. such nomad Ic and adventurous spirits ns land I nt'ontfl and townslto boomers, trndms nnd newspaper meu could be discovered I even more easily Hatly In Novem-i Novem-i ber work upon tho rnllrond lines halt-I halt-I ed, nnd tho builders retired to nwalt : tho opening of spilng. At tho terminus termi-nus of each load n lit t lo settlement hud spuing up. less than a halfdozon ttructures ninikliig tho site of what was hoped to ho and nlieady was hor 1 aided us the inctiopollB of tho volley t'pon such a situation steadily but surely crept tho Thursday which tho president of the I'nlted Htotes hnd chosen as the annual day of thanksgiving, thanks-giving, and at the dlstonco of only ono short week tho fact suddenly dawned upon tho clustered Intelligence of those two Dakota towns that there was not a turkey in the great Jim val ley north of Hloux Tails, and that 80 miles of windswept pralrio lay between be-tween a morn hopeful Mold of possible supplv at Watcrtown, near the Minnesota Minne-sota boundary Thoro Is mutorlal for it volume of iidvotituro In the account I of the two rival expeditions dispatched hlmiiliuneously yet with all secrecy on a Journey of a hundred and sixty iV for fowls to furnish forth a Thanksgiving Thanks-giving dinner, but this story must omit the details One paity leturned hilariously hilari-ously successful with tho thrco tur keys that eloquence, strategy nnd mon-e mon-e combined wore able to ptocuro In WMortown, tho other, downcast, de jeited. and pcsblnilatlc, came back empty-handed. To emphaslro U ' otnry the successful suc-cessful town annou l.e turkey sjioot (at which all I ! marksmen marks-men were barred), a nner at tho hotel, and a grand 'tut railroad rail-road wart-house, This ulated to mnko its rival, Ashtoti. either swell with rage to huistii.g or wlthor away In Hclf-nhiiM'meul rui.l despair. The fateful da nrilvrd, u gray day with the first Hakes of snow In tho air The prize turkey shoot conio off early In the morning at Itedllcld, ns advertised, ad-vertised, but an unforeseen contlncncy i csulted A marksman of truly diabolical dia-bolical skill developed In a resident of two weeks' standing, nnd nil thrco turkeys fell beloio Ills trusty ride. Tho fowls had been set up nt ICO ynrds nnd with only their bends exposed to tho destructive bullets All participants nt halt n dollar for each shot hnd ills-plajcd ills-plajcd remarkable accuracy of aim, but tho winner had distanced his competitors, com-petitors, nnd captured tho shooting match Tho npprehenslon evolved among tho witnesses of this remark-able remark-able accident soon ripened Into rebellious rebel-lious determination. What was to bo done with a dlslovnl citizen who calmly calm-ly announced that the turkejs would bo served up at a prlvnto banquet nt tho Hotel Dodge, to be enjoyed by himself him-self add two espcclnl friends? Ho said ho thought n bird nplcco was about their normal capacity, and as throo fowls certainly coulil not furnish n" meal for 7C, nnd somebody must go without turkey, It would bo more satisfactory sat-isfactory nil around to let thrco lucky fellows get enough for once. At tho end of n short but explosive debato tho winner was Immured In a freight All Three Fell Before His Truity Rifle. car In spite of his verbal nnd fistic protests, and tho turkeys wero handed hand-ed over to the hotel proprietor and his cook to bo piepared for tho grand public dinner Tho short winter day canio to an end and darkness fell upon the plain, haidlv whitened by the snow that had melted iib fast as It had fallen Suddenly Sud-denly then was great excitement ntyl confusion nt the lintel Nothing was to be found of the rook or of tho turkeys tur-keys which had boon roasting for hours In tho oven of tho hotel range. Tho chef hud been bribed In advance by n wily Ashtonlun, and with tho first shades of night he had stolen away, figuratively and literally, with tho turkeys already done to a turn. At Ashtou all went merrily The oyster supper began decorously, but when plates bearing small but Indubitably In-dubitably genulno slices of turVoy, and genet ous lielplngs of dressing flanked by (inhering masses of crimson crim-son cranberry Jell!', were swiftly passed down the long table, n wild, exultant shout went up that lifted the roof of tho frail hotol structure and shattered the silence of a Dakota night outside till tho rival town nine miles nwny might easily ha noted the vibrations, vi-brations, Among the unspeakable crimes of tho groat west that are still shrouded In in) story Is the bribing of tho hotel cook. The briber possibly still llv. In luxury, with his secret all his ou-In ou-In some kitchen far away may till ptesldo the chef who accepted tils cor- ruptlnc fuud. |