No, but the
little silent people are very good to me.
Let me, then, go on my bird's-egging and tell you one more fact about our
fairy, our Humming-Bird. Audubon says "that an all-wise Providence has made
this little hero an exception to a rule which prevails almost universally
through Nature,--namely, that the smallest species of a tribe are the most
prolific. The eagle lays one, sometimes two eggs; the small European wren
fifteen; the humming-bird two: and yet this latter is abundantly more
numerous in America than the wren in Europe." All on account of his
wonderful courage, admirable instinct, or whatever it is that guards and
guides him so unerringly.
You see we may well love him whom
Nature herself loves so dearly.
"Ce que Dieu garde est bien garde."
Ah, Estelle! your bonnie birdie, with
his wild whirr, darting back and forth
like a weaver's shuttle weaving fine
wefts, has got into my head; not "bee-bonneted,"
but bird-bonneted, I go. Yes,
this day shall be given to the king, as
our country-folk say, when they go a-pleasuring.
I am off with the little wool-gatherers,
to see what thorn and brier
and fern-stalk and willow-catkin will give
me. Good-day! good-day!
Your own
SUSAN, SUSY, SUE.
P. S. "May our friendship never
moult a feather!"
* * * * *
CHESS.
Schatrenschar, the Persian, who could count the stars one by one, who is
known to have been borne, (by the Simorg, the Eternal Fowl,) at midnight,
first to the evening star, and then to the moon, and then set down safely
in his home,--and Al Kahlminar, the Arabian, who was a mystic seer, and had
conversed face to face with the Demons of the Seven Planets, approaching
also, on one occasion, so nigh unto Uriel that his beard was singed by the
sun, wherein that angel resideth,--these, ten million years ago, lived in
their palaces on adjoining estates and lands.
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