Zip, Peter-Kins and the Turkey Gobbler

Promptly at nine-thirty the next morning the doctor's carriage appeared in front of his patient's house opposite Miss Belinda's cottage.

Zip lay quietly on the seat until the doctor had disappeared in the house, and then he quickly jumped out of the buggy, tiptoed across the street and quietly slipped under the fence. Once under, he stood stock-still and listened, eyes up and ears alert to catch any sound or see any movement of his old enemies, the monkey and the parrot. All was quiet in the front yard, and not even Polly's cage was to be seen swinging on its accustomed hook beside the front door. Still Zip listened and looked in every tree and bush, to make sure the monkey was not hiding under the leaves, ready to pounce on him. He had just come to the conclusion that they had been shut in the house when he heard a terrible commotion and cackling going on in the chicken yard, and above it all Polly's voice screaming, "Help! Help! Naughty Peter-Kinks! (This was Polly's name for Peter-Kins.) Spank! Spank! Help! Help!"

"I'll just keep hidden, and wait until he comes down," planned Zip, "and then I will pounce out and grab him by the back of his neck and shake him as if he were a rat."

(Page Fifty-Five)

But instead of coming down the trunk as he had before, Peter-Kins ran out on one of the long, slender, drooping limbs that reached nearly to the ground, and when it bent within three feet of the earth, he dropped and lit on the back of a rooster.

Now while Peter-Kins had been riding the rooster, this very gobbler called out, "You stupid fellow! Stop running round and round! Go under the fence and scratch that beast off your back!"

But alas, for him! He could give advice, but not live up to it himself, for while he was gobbling, Peter-Kins leaped from the rooster's back to his own, and with shrunken feathers, he began running around and around the yard, just as the rooster had done, too frightened to know what he was doing, or to pay attention to his own advice, while all the chickens were now cackling at him, "Run under the fence! Run under the fence and scratch him off!"

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" quacked the ducks.

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" hissed the geese.

"Run under the fence and scratch him off!" gobbled his wife, the old turkey hen.

But no; he was deaf to their cries, and with pride gone and feathers clinging to his sides, he was running and jumping around the yard madly and blindly, nearly knocking his head off as first he ran dizzily into this and then into that.

When Zip had watched the excitement as long as he cared to, he thought, "Now is my time to grab Peter-Kins by the tail and pull him off that turkey's back before it kills itself."

So with one bound he was through the fence and had Peter-Kins' tail in his mouth before he ever saw him coming. But the monkey did not drop from the turkey's back as Zip thought he would. He only clung the tighter, and with his arms around the turkey's neck and with his knees digging into the turkey's sides, Zip could not dislodge him.

Zip being too stubborn to let go the monkey's tail, the three queer looking objects went running around and around the barnyard together, under wagons, between coops, across the watering trough. Sometimes running, sometimes jumping or half flying went the long-legged turkey with the bobbing monkey on its back, whose tail was in the little dog's mouth.

This was what Miss Belinda saw when she returned from market and looked into her barnyard to see what was causing all her fowls to make such a fuss.

"Well, I declare, if there isn't a little dog chasing my chickens and turkeys! But what is that on the big gobbler's back? Sure as I live, it is Peter-Kins! Here, you horrid little dog, let go my darling Peter-Kins' tail!" and Miss Belinda picked up a long-handled rake that was leaning against the fence and went after Zip.

All this time Polly had been screeching, "Help! Help! Naughty Peter-Kinks! Spank! Spank!"

Zip held on the monkey's tail until the rake appeared over his head, then he let go quickly, giving an extra bite to the tip, which came off in his mouth. He jumped back just in time to save himself from being hit on the head, for the rake came down with such force that it laid both the turkey and Peter-Kins out flat on their backs, where they lay kicking as if in the throes of death.

Miss Belinda thought she had killed her pets, and began to cry as she picked them up.

As for Zip, he slunk away and ran back to the doctor's buggy just in time to jump in as the doctor started for home. So by the time Miss Belinda had gathered up Peter-Kins and saw that the turkey was more frightened than hurt, Zip was blocks away, laughing to himself at the whack the monkey and turkey had gotten instead of him, and at the funny spectacle the three of them must have made as they ran around and around the yard.

"And won't Tabby laugh when I tell her about it?" he thought.