At first his song seemed to be "whip-poor-will,
whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will;" then, by listening, it could be made out
to say, "good-will, good-will." In later years, by the aid of
imagination, his notes were interpreted, "peace and plenty, peace and
plenty." But, whatever we might imagine him to say, his song was always
the same. He was a welcome visitor and songster, and his appearance in
spring was always hailed with joy.
Sometimes I would rise early in the morning and go out of the door just
at daylight. I could hear the notes of the little songsters, just waking,
singing their first songs of the morning. I would listen to see if I
could hear the gobbling of the wild turkeys. I hardly ever failed to hear
them, sometimes in different directions. I frequently could hear two or
three at once. The old gobblers commonly selected the largest trees, in
the thickest woods, with limbs high up, for their roosts and as soon as
it came daylight, in the east, they would be up strutting and gobbling.
They could be heard, in a still morning, for a mile or two. The gobbling
of the turkey, the drumming of the partridge upon his log, the crowing of
our and the neighbors' roosters and the noise of woodpeckers pounding the
tops of old trees, were the principal sounds I could hear when I set out
with my rifle in hand.
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