The “little Turkeys” that I am going to tell you about are the children that live in a far away land called Turkey.

To reach this land you would have to travel many hundreds of miles in railroad trains and big ships.

In fact it is almost as far away as China, and that, you know, is farther away than you can imagine.

The “little Turkeys” are very interesting, and they would think your way of living just as strange as you will think theirs is.

To begin at the very beginning, the tiny baby doesn’t wear any dresses. He is wrapped round and round, body, legs, and arms, with cloths, until he looks like a dry-goods bundle.

Every baby wears a gay little bonnet, usually bright green, because the favorite color of the Turks is green.

The Turkish baby is often hung up in a little clothdecoration84decoration hammock, but sometimes he is rocked to sleep in a wooden cradle.

The cradle is a long wooden box on low rockers with high carved ends.

In the Sultan’s treasure house is a cradle of solid gold, decorated with pearls, diamonds, and rubies. This is the cradle in which the baby princes are rocked; and it is very beautiful, as you can easily imagine.

When the boy baby is about a year old he is placed in charge of a man nurse, if the father is not too poor. This man takes care of him until he is six years old.

Then the boy is given a new suit of clothes and a pony, and he is ready to go to school. Almost all of the boys in Turkey ride on horse-back. I think you would like that.

The new suit may be big baggy trousers, with an embroidered shirt and short jacket. Or it may be long full trousers of gay striped calico, and a little jacket, quilted in puffy squares.

Every boy wears on his head a red fez with a black tassel.

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In his new suit, the boy starts off for school on his pony, and his brothers go with him. The bells on the pony jingle, the boys shout and sing, and it is a very merry procession.
three boys, wearing fezes, sitting on mats reading