Clydetta O'Dell
Those Wise Turkey's is a book of stories the author has collected from several people who have shared with her as well as stories she experienced personally. The basic stories are true. In some cases names and places have been changed to protect the the identity of the person about whom the story was written. Also some details have been added to make the story more readable. The stories have life lessons that are spiritual so church leaders can use them for children.
This book is the third one written by Clydetta O'Dell who has written for church magazines, the first story being in a children's magazine when she was fourteen years of age.
Clydetta O'Dell is a retired school teacher who told many stories to her students and still tells stories to children. Since the children have always loved her stories, she decided to write books of stories which includes many of the stories she has told to Children.
Cleta lived on a farm. Since she had always loved animals, this was a wonderful place for her to live after she had married. She had a farmhouse that she had to keep clean and some turkeys she had to feed as well as a horse, cows, and goats.
One Nanny goat gave a lot of milk so Cleta and her husband put the milking machine on her and put her milk with the cows’ milk. When old Rosy at the creamery heard that they had goats, he said, “I can tell whether milk is goats’ milk or cows’ milk because the taste is different.” They never told him that a goat’s milk was in with the cows’ milk, and he never knew the difference.
Cleta made pets of her turkeys so they would come to her when she brought them feed. She didn’t keep them penned up since they needed to be able to eat the grass and bugs in the farmyard. She watched them each day from the kitchen window as she worked because they were amusing in their antics. She remembered when she was a girl and a turkey gobbler and a banty rooster got in a fight. What a sight that was! The old gobbler would try to fight the banty, and the banty would disappear between his legs and then he attacked the gobbler. The gobbler couldn’t catch him, but he could get the gobbler because there was much more territory to get. The banty was so small and fast, the gobbler couldn’t move his body fast enough to catch him. One particular day as Cleta was thinking these things, she saw no turkeys in the yard where they usually were, but she heard a strange noise coming from the hill back of the farm. She still had her pajamas on, but no one was around so out the door she ran. She wondered how she could get to the turkeys quickly and noticed the horse tied to the rail eating hay. She untied him quickly, grabbed his mane and jumped onto his back without saddle or bridle. She kicked his flanks and said, “Giddy up,” guiding him by his mane.
As the horse galloped up the hill with Cleta hanging on for dear life, they came to the turkeys all gathered into a bunch with their heads stuck out looking at---- guess what? Cleta’s eyes got big, but the turkeys weren’t frightened in the least. They just made their turkey sound that had made Cleta run pell-mell on the horse up the hill.
