The Thirty-Pound Christmas Turkey: 1893

HAUNTED BY A TURKEY

How the Christmas Present of Thirty Pound Bird Destroyed a Man’s Peace of Mind.

There was an expression of despondency and care on the face of my friend Craggs when, a few days after Christmas, he took me aside and inquired in a quavering voice if I would take the gift of a turkey. He had a discouraged and almost hopeless air, as though he feared I was going to refuse to accept it.

“Thanks, old man,” said I, “I’ll take it and welcome.”

If he had been a street vendor and I had said, “I’ll buy your flowers,” he couldn’t have looked happier.

I could see that something was burdening his mind, but of course had no idea that it was the turkey itself.

He suddenly broke down all at once, grasped me by the hand and said huskily that it was a kindness he would never forget; that he would do as much for me some time, and went on in that style till I began to half fancy that in a fit of temporary insanity he might have stolen a turkey and was trying to get rid of the property in this way.

Then it occurred to me that I might have misunderstood him and he had really asked me to give him a turkey—which, of course, I couldn’t do, for obvious reasons—and the cold chills began to creep up my back.

For a moment it was perhaps the oddest predicament I was ever in. Then my friend Craggs regained his composure and explained himself this wise:

“You see, old fellow,” said he, “I have a turkey that’s an elephant on my hands—an incubus—a monster, and it all came about in this way.

“My wife and I keep house alone by ourselves, and on Christmas Day we had a turkey dinner. The turkey was a modest bird, who had never aspired to be a giant, but had contented himself with remaining juicy and tender.

“As a result of these modest aspirations and achievements of the fowl there remained of him after our Christmas dinner just enough to satisfy our appetites for turkey for some time to come in the way of perhaps another dinner and a few scraps for lunch.

“At this juncture, however, a package arrived at our house addressed to me, which upon being opened, proved to contain a turkey of herculean proportions, sent to me by a sister who lives out of the city on a farm.

“It was a regular Jack Falstaff of a turkey—the biggest I ever laid eyes on—with drumsticks bulging like hams, and a mighty corpulency withal, which told of good living and boundless ambitions in the matter of fat.

“Mrs. Craggs, being a thrifty housewife, was of course, delighted, but I am bound to confess that, though having a sneaking fondness for my stomach, I could not figure it out otherwise than this: That, there being but two of us to eat a turkey which would tip the scales at nearly thirty pounds, here was a prospect of having to endure that diet for weeks.

“I saw that it needs must follow, as the night the day, that that confounded turkey, in some form or other, either roasted or boiled or fried or chopped or fricasseed or mashed or hashed, would form the basis of my daily meals for days and perhaps weeks.

“I even feared, in which case, that the flavour of turkey might get so indelibly absorbed into my palate that it would never die away, forever casting a blighting flavor upon all my favorite dishes.

It took me hours to convince Mrs. Craggs that it was our best interests to give that turkey to some one of our friends. Then I felt relieved, but I soon found that my troubles had only commenced. It was too soon after Christmas, and the turkey was too big. Not one of my friends wanted to take a contract to cook and eat that bird. They were tired of turkey already, they said.

“As it was a present I couldn’t think of selling it. The awful fact stared me in the face that I had got to eat that turkey or bust—perhaps both, in natural sequence.

“I’ve been chasing around all day carrying, mentally, that turkey, but I’ve got you in my clutches at last, and you shall not escape me. But come, first, and we’ll open a small bottle.”

New York [NY] Herald 31 December 1893: p. 14

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil is reminded of the axiom: “Eternity is a ham and two people.”

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

A Christmas Bird Under Bombardment: 1862

AN ATTACK ON THE TURKEY

A Christmas Bird Under Bombardment

A Good Dinner at Last

“I wake up at night to laugh about some things that happened in the army,” said Capt. Williams of the old One Hundred and Second Pennsylvania. “I remember that on one occasion when three companies of one regiment were on picket duty at Great Falls on the Potomac, we prepared for a big time and didn’t have it. The night before Christmas the boys concentrated all their thought on a Christmas dinner. An old man was sent off to Rockville on a foraging expedition with instructions to get a turkey or never come back. He came back the next morning with as fine a turkey as ever gobbled, a twenty pounder, and it was cooked in splendid style by men who knew how to do that sort of thing. It was on the table in the house at the reserve post, and with carving knife and fork in hand I was on my feet making a flourish preparatory to an attack on the turkey, when, crash! came the plastering down on the table.

“The crash was followed by a terrific explosion that tore out one corner of the house. It was followed by another crash that sent half the shingles flying from the roof. A third explosion sent more of the ceiling down on the table and on those about it. Then we comprehended that we were being bombarded and we lit out, leaving the turkey in the ruins. The rebels had placed three guns in position on the opposite side of the river and, getting range at first fire, had opened on our picket post. We didn’t care much about the house, and we regarded the shooting at us as a question of privilege, but our mouths watered whenever we thought of the turkey in the ruins.

“The rebels, of course, kept up their fire on the old house until it was pretty well demolished. In the meantime we gave them our undivided attention and when they retired the men who had been at dinner proceeded to investigate the ruins of the old house. The turkey was excavated, was submitted to a cleansing process, and was eaten. I have attended a great many Christmas dinners since the time, but I don’t remember one that had more jollity in it than our dinner on cold turkey at Great Falls. I never see a fellow with a carving knife and fork but that I look unconsciously up to the ceiling to see whether any bombshells are coming through or not, and I suppose that I have laughed 1,000 times over the consternation that spread over the faces of the boys when that first block of plastering came down on our turkey. Inter Ocean “Curbstone Crayons.”

Springfield [OH] Globe-Republic 26 March 1886: p. 2

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  There is, Mrs Daffodil, notes, an “insider” joke in the description of the turkey as a “20 pounder,” which was also the nomenclature for a piece of field artillery used in the American Civil War, perhaps the type that brought the plaster—and the house—down upon the turkey.  The good-humoured Captain might have had the adage “Hunger is the best sauce” written specially for him.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.