CHAPTER IV.

MY HUMMING BIRDS.

As a child, I always had a passion for the humming bird. It ever caused a thrill of delight when one of these glittering creatures, with its soft hum of flight, came out of repose all suddenly-hanging, a sapphire stilled upon the air-for here no wings are seen,-as, like a quick, bright thought, it darts, is still, and then away!

The mystery of" whence it cometh, and whither it goeth," was a lovely and exciting one to me. How and where could a thing so delicate live in a rough, wintry world like this? How could the glory of its burnished plumes remain undimmed, that it thus shot forth arrows of light into my eyes, while all other things seemed slowly fading?

Where could it renew its splendors? In what far bath of gems dissolved, dipping, come forth mailed in its varied shine? How could those tiny wings, whose soul-like motion no mortal eye can follow, bear the frail sprite through beating tempests that are hurling the albatross, with mighty pinions, prone upon the wave; or that dash the sea-eagle, shrieking, against its eyrie-cliff? How speeds it straight and safe-the gem-arrow of the elfs?

Could it be that the tiny birds lived only on the nectar of flowers? It seemed, surely, the fitting food for beauty so ethereal. But, then, it removed them so far from things of the earth, earthy-their home must surely be fairyland, and they coursers of the wind for Ariel to "put a girdle round.

the earth," if this be so. But, if there be no fairies, and these be only natural forces that propel it so, is nectar, or ambrosia even, food of the substance that could give the steely toughness to those hair-spring thews, whose sharp stroke cuts a resistless way through hurricanes?

These, and a thousand such questions, thronged upon me in those innocent times, but my most eager and continued inquiries were-How did they come? Were they born so, all bright and ready? Or did they come like other birds? I could find other birds' nests and eggs, and I understood how they came; but I never could find a humming bird's

nest.

Nor could I find any one else who ever had found one. There were traditions that somebody's grandfather had heard a very old man say, that he had heard it once upon a time, from an old witch-woman, that to find a humming bird's nest, was as much a sign of good luck as reaching the end of a rainbow-that you were sure to get a heap of diamonds from it, instead of the bag of gold. Well, as I was for many a year, until I actually did stand with my feet upon the end of a rainbow, a devout believer in that same bag of gold, why should I not also have faith in that nest of diamonds?

This may seem like hazarding assertion for fact. I pledge my personal veracity for the truth of the following simple relation of an incident happening to myself. I was, when twenty years of age, passing on horseback from my native town, Hopkinsville, Ky., to a neighboring town, Clarksville, Tenn. When about half way, I was suddenly overtaken by one of those swift summer storms, peculiar to the South. I was then in the lane of a very large tobacco plantation, and knowing that I could obtain shelter in a country store near the end of it, I urged my horse into a run, and was soon there. I sprang down upon the low steps, and pushed my way through the crowd of farmers collected at the door-as people instinctively do, during a thunder storm, to witness its progress. I stood just within the door sill, where I had

obtained a footing, and held my horse's reign. The storm was of short duration-when the sun burst through the vapory clouds that lingered heavily yet, and a dozen voices exclaimed, "the rainbow! the rainbow!"

I looked up I never saw one so brilliant before-it dazzled me I felt as if it was in my eyes. By this time I had stepped down from the door-sill to the step, and naturally looking down as I did so, to my great astonishment, the rainbow laid along the ground before me, crossing the road to the fence up the rails of which it could be distinctly traced, until it again became visible up the air, forming the arc which dipped at the apparent horizon-about a mile beyond the field. I could distinctly trace that segment of the arc-which seemed to lay along the ground, and up the fence on the air, as it sprang directly from where my feet rested.

It only seemed to lie upon the ground from its perfect transparency. The near limb made itself first visible on the points of my boots, and then sprung out and up, directly in front of me the upper rim of the segments being within a few inches of my face.

I at first thought that the unusual brilliancy and suddenness of the appearance, had dazzled my vision and confused it, but when I heard one after another of the old farmers behind me exclaiming to each other at the strangeness of the thing, I turned and asked them if they could see it on the steps, along the road, and up the fence-all answered in the affirmative, and several remarked that they could see it on my shoes. I was unwilling to be deceived, and called forward the oldest man in the company, a farmer of 68, and asked him if he could see it. He said,

"Yes-but bless God, this is the first time ever I heard in my born days, of the end of a rainbow being seen, much less of a man standing on it. And they ain't no bag of gold thar after all!" he ejaculated, in a tone that drew forth a general laugh.