Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1: An Illustrated MagazineVarious
General
Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1: An Illustrated Magazine
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a
pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding
him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop
of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a
bird who knew what he was about and didn't mean to be chaffed, he
briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and
licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he
was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had
undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for
getting him a settled establishment in our apartment. I gave up my
work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that
he should take a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was
formally put to bed with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck,
to keep him from beating his wings. Out of his white wrappings he looked
forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a
bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him,
and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.
The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for
purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of
lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that
they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life's fire
burning in their tiny bodies. Our bird's lungs manufactured brilliant
blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived
to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get
more of it than he needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as
carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright,
scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical authority looked
grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him
over at once. We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his
little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would
do well enough in time,--as it afterward appeared he did,--for from that
day there was no more bleeding. In the course of the second day he began
to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to
return to us,--perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and
sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time. "These
great giants," he seemed to say to himself, "are not bad people after
all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and
warmed me! Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them."
So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three
that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and
we christened him "Hum, the son of Buz." He became an individuality, a
character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some
extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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