Little David and the Turkey (1900)

On January 21, 1917, the Boston Sunday Herald's column "Every-Day Questions by Julie Pride," printed a letter from a reader who had expressed a hope that someone would be able to identify a turkey ghost poem with the lines "'I didn't have much to eat,' said a voice beneath the sheet" and "I regret to disappoint, But two drumsticks, second joint—" The general idea of the poem was described, and the fact that it had been published in a monthly magazine 15 or 16 years ago. Whether they got their answer, I don't know; their memory was fairly accurate, though, as the following will show.

LITTLE DAVID AND THE TURKEY.
A STORY WISE CHILDREN WILL REMEMBER ON THANKSGIVING DAY .
BY JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS.

LITTLE David had been told,
On becoming ten years old,
	He could have just what he wanted for his party;
And he spent the livelong day
In the hardest kind of play
	To be certain that his appetite was hearty.

And this is what that youngster had to eat—
The menu may be somewhat incomplete,
	But as near as I could follow,
	This is what he had to swallow—
	You'll conclude the boy was hollow
To his feet:

After oysters, raw, on ice,
He had chicken gumbo twice,
	Then the turkey took its place in front of Davy.
Two drumsticks and some breast
Went beneath his little vest,
	A second joint, five vegetables, and gravy.

There was chicken pie with crust
(Why that youngster didn't bust!)
	And a pudding all a blazing up with brandy,
Ice cream and frosted cake,
Just as much as he could take,
	And fruit and nuts and raisins——oh, and candy!

Then his sleepy time had come, young David said.
He'd a funny sort of feeling in his—head.
	Oh, his soul was sad and cumbered,
	And he thought his days were numbered;
	But at last the youngster slumbered
In his bed.

All at once he heard—low groans!
Oh, they froze his marrow bones!
	Then a sound of some one limping and a hobbling,
And across the somber gloom
Of his lonely little room,
Step by step, on creaky crutches, came a Gobling!

And he perched upon the bedside and began:
I've a tale for you to listen to, young man!

“Every Gobling, you're apprised,
After daybreak goes disguised
	In the person of a fowl or dog or kitten.
Monday morning, for an hour,
I availed me of this power—
	And, alas, it was a turkey that I lit on!

“Well, you know the tragic rest.
I could spare a little breast;
	All the grown ups merely left me rather thinner.
But you took so much to eat
That my structure's incomplete;
	I'm afraid I'll have to ask you for your dinner.”

“But I hadn’t—much—to eat!”
Quaked the voice beneath the sheet.
	The Gobling only scowled at frightened Davy.
“I regret to disappoint,
But—two drumsticks, second joint,
	And the white meat! You may keep the giblet gravy.”

Then David, with a shaking in his knees,
Thought he'd try this dreadful being to appease.

“Sir, you're perfect now,” he faltered;
“It would spoil you to be altered.”
	But the Gobling shook his head. “Young sir, you flatter me.
I could spare my outer rims,
But I need my nether limbs;
	So I'll ask you for the rest of my anatomy.”

“I don't want them,” Davy cried;
“But oh, sir, they're down inside!”
	Said the Gobling, “Why, I'll follow them with pleasure.
’Twill be quite a pleasant change—
The surroundings will be strange.
	I can gather my belongings at my leisure.”

Now, the last thing Davy wanted, as you've guessed,
Was a Gobling playing alias in his chest.
	And his teeth began to chatter,
	For he saw he couldn't flatter,
	But he sought to work the matter
For the best.

All at once, a bright idea:
“’Tis the bones you want, I fear,
	And there isn't one within my little inner;
But you'll find them all, I know,
In our Nero down below—
	He was given quite a plateful for his dinner.”

The Gobling sat and mused.
Well, I feel a bit abused;
	Bare bones are rather comfortless at zero.
But if I can find a few,
I suppose it ought to do.
	Well, perhaps I'd better spend a week in Nero.”

So he vanished through the gloom
Of that lonely little room,
	And Davy hid his little head and trembled.
And soon he heard a growl
And a yelp and then a howl,
	And presently his family all assembled.

Oh, he heard them call and scold,
But he never, never told.
	For a week that doggie acted up like forty.
And they never understood
Why their David was so good,
	And their Nero so peculiar and so naughty.
The Puritan 9(2). November 1900. 247-248.

"Gobling" is an archaic, somewhat uncommon, variant spelling for "goblin." E.g. it appears in a definition for "larvated" (itself a curious word): "masqued, or visarded, for the representing some Gobling, or dreadfull Spirit" Phillips, Edward, ed. The New World of Words: Or a General English Dictionary. 3rd Ed. London, Nath. Brook, 1671. "Like forty," in the last stanza, means "with great force" (Word Detective).

California native Juliet Wilbor Tompkins (1871-1956) was the author of numerous poems, plays, stories and novels, some of which were adapted into films between 1919 and 1931.