Jericho Bob

by Anna Eichberg King

     Jericho Bob, when he was four years old, hoped that one day he might be allowed to eat just as much turkey as he possibly could. He was eight now, but that hope had not been realized.

     Mrs. Jericho Bob, his mother, kept hens for a living, and she expected  they would lay enough eggs in the course of time to help her son to an independent career as a bootblack.

     They lived in a tumble-down house in a waste of land near the steam cars. Besides her hens Mrs. Bob owned a goat.

     Our story has, however, nothing to do with the goat except to say he was there, and that he was on nibbling terms, not only with Jericho Bob, but with his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, and it was surprising how many old hat brims and other tidbits of clothing he could swallow during a day.

     And Mrs. Bob truly said, it was no earthly use to get something new for Jericho, even if she could afford it; for the goat browsed all over him, and had been known to carry away even a leg of his trousers.

     Jericho Bob was eight years old and his friend, Julius Caesar Fish, was nine. They were so much alike that if it hadn’t been for Jericho’s bow-legs and his turned up nose, you really could not have told them apart.

     A kindred taste for turkey also united them.

     In honor of Thanksgiving Day Mrs. Bob always sacrificed a hen which would, but for such blessed release, have died of old age.  One drumstick was given to Jericho, whose interior remained an unsatisfied void.

     Jericho has heard of turkey as a fowl larger, sweeter and more tender than hen, and about Thanksgiving time he would linger around the provision stores and gaze with open mouth at the array of turkeys hanging head downward over bushels of cranberries, as if even at that uncooked stage, they were destined for one another. And turkey was his dream.

     It was springtime, and the hens were being a credit to themselves. The goat in the yard, tied to a stake, was varying a meal of old shoe and tomato can by a nibble of fresh green grass. Mrs. Bob was laid up with rheumatism.

     “Jericho Bob!” she said to her son, shaking her red and yellow turban at him. “Jericho Bob, you go down and fetch de eggs today. Ef I find yer don’t bring me twenty-three, I’ll…well never mind what I’ll do. but you won’t like it”

     Now Jericho Bob meant to be honest, but the fact was he found twenty-four, and the twenty-fourth was so big, so remarkably big. Twenty-three eggs he brought to Mrs. Bob, but the twenty-fourth he left sinfully in charge of the discreet hen.

     On his return he met Julius Caesar Fish, with his hands in his pockets and his head extinguished by his grandfather’s fur cap. Together they went toward the hen coop and Fish spoke, or rather lisped (he had lost some of his front teeth):

     “Jericho Bob, tha’th a turkey’th egg.”

     “Yer don’t say so.”

     “I think i’th a-goin to hatch.”

     No sooner said that they heard a pick and peck in the shell.

     “Pick!” a tiny beak broke through the shell. “Peck!” more break. “Crack!” a funny little head, a long bare neck, and then “Pick, peck, crack! before them stood the funniest, fluffiest brown ball  resting on two weak little legs.

     “Hooray!” they shouted.

     “Peep!” said the turkeykin.

     “It’s mine!” Jericho Bob shouted excitedly.

     “I’th Marm Pitkin’th turkey’th; she laid it there.”

     “It’s mine, and I’m going to keep it, and next Thanksgiving I’m going ter eat him.”

     “Think yer ma’ll let you feed him up for thath? Julius Caesar asked triumphantly.

     Jericho Bob’s next Thanksgiving dinner seemed destined to be a dream. His face fell.

     “I’ll tell you wath I’ll do,” his friend said, benevolently: “I’ll keep him for you, and Thanksgivin’ we’ll go halvth.”

     Jericho resigned himself to the inevitable, and the infant turkey was borne home by his friend.

     Fish. Jr., lived next door, and the only difference in the premises was a freight-car permanently switched off before the broken down fence of the Fish yard; and in this car turkeykin took up his abode.

     I will not tell you how he grew and more than realized the hopes of his foster-fathers, nor with what impatience and anticipation they saw spring. summer and autumn pass, while they watched their Thanksgiving dinner stalk proudly up the bare yard and even hop across the railroad tracks.

     But alas! the possession of the turkey brought with it strife and discord.

     Quarrels arose between the friends as to the prospective disposal of his remains. We grieve to say that the question of who was to cook him led to blows.

     It was the day before Thanksgiving. There was a coldness between the friends which was not dispelled by the bringing of a pint of cranberries to the common store by Jericho, and the contributing thereto of a couple of cold-boiled sweet potatoes by Julius Caesar Fish.

     The friends sat on an ancient washtub in the backyard, and there was a momentary truce between them. Before them stood the freight-car, and along the track beyond, an occasional train tore down the road, which so far excited their mutual sympathy that they rose and shouted as one man.

     At the open door of the freight-car stood the unsuspecting turkey who looked meditatively out on the landscape and at the two figures on the washtub.

     One had bow-legs, a turned-up nose and a huge straw hat. The other wore a fur cap and a gentleman’s swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up because they were too long.

     The turkey hopped out of the car and gazed confidently at his protectors. In point of size he was altogether their superior.

     “I think,” said Jericho Bob, “we’d better catch ‘im. Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. Yum!”

     And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.

     “Butcher  Tham’th goin’ to kill ‘im for ‘uth,” Julius Caesar hastened to say, “And I can cook ‘im.”

     “No you ain’t. I’m goin’ to cook ‘im,” Jericho Bob cried resentfully. “He’s mine.”

     “He ainth; he’s mine.”

     “He was my egg,” and Jericho Bob danced defiantly at his friend.

     The turkey looked with some surprise, and became alarmed when he saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.

     “I’ll eat ‘im all alone!” Jericho Bob cried

     “No you sha’nt!” the other shouted.

     The turkey shrieked in terror and fled in a circle about the yard.

     “Now look yere,” said Julius Caesar, who had conquered, “we’re going to be squar. He wath your egg, but who brought him up? Me! Who’th got a friend to kill him? Me! Who’th got a fire to cook ‘im? Me! Now you get up and we’ll ketch ‘im. Ef you say another word about your egg I’ll jeth eat ‘im up all mythelf.”

     Jericho Bob was conquered. With mutual understanding they approached the turkey.

     “Come yere; come yere,” Julius Caesar said, coaxing the bird.

     For a moment the bird gazed at both, uncertain what to do.

     “Come yere,” Julius repeated,  and made a dive for him. The turkey spread his tail. Oh, didn’t he run.”

     “Now I’ve got yer!” the wicked Jericho Bob cried, and thought he had captured the fowl, when with a shriek from Jericho Bob, as the turkey knocked him over, the Thanksgiving  dinner spread his wings, rose in the air, and alighted on the roof of the freight-car.

     The turkey looked down over the edge of the car at his enemies, and they gazed up at him. Both parties surveyed the situation.

     “We’ve got ‘im,” Julius Caesar cried out exultantly. “You get on the roof, and if you can’t catch him up there I’ll kitch ‘im down here.”

     And with the help of the washtub, an old chair the older Caesar’s back and much scrambling Jericho Bob was hoisted on top of the car. The turkey now stalked solemnly up and down the roof with wings half spread.

     “I’ve got ‘er now,” Jericho Bob said, creeping slowly after him. “I’ve got yer now, sure, he was softly repeating, when with a deafening roar the express train for New York came tearing down the track.

     For what possible reason it slowed up on approaching the freight-car nobody ever knew, but one fact remains that it did just as Jericho Bob laid one wicked paw on the turkey’s tail.

     The turkey shrieked, spread its wings, shook the small black boy’s grasp from its tail, and with a mighty swoop alighted on the roof of the very last car as it passed, and in a moment more Jericho Bob’s Thanksgiving dinner has vanished, like a beautiful dream down the road.

     Now what became of that Thanksgiving dinner no one ever knew. If you happen to meet a traveling turkey without any luggage, but with a smile on his countenance, kindly send word to Jericho Bob.