“Let me see,” he said, and he lowered his ponderous length and stretched it beside her on the grassy bank. “Genie, you’re right about the bees being funny, but wrong about what they’re doing. They are diluting their honey. Well, I’m not sure, but I think bees on the desert dilute their honey with water. Watch!... Maybe they drink at the same time. But you see--some of them have their heads turned away from the water, as if they meant to back down.... Bees are hard to understand.” “By the great horn spoon!” ejaculated Genie, and then she laughed. Adam echoed her laugh. He could have shouted or sung to the skies. Never before, indeed, had he heard Genie use such an expression, but the content of it was precious to him. It revealed hitherto unsuspected depths in her, as the interest in bees hinted of an undeveloped love of nature. “Genie, do you care about bees, birds, flowers--what they do--how they live and grow?” “Love them,” she answered, simply. “You do! Ah, that’s fine! So do I. Why, Genie, I’ve lived so long on the desert, so many years! What would I have done without love of everything that flies and crawls and grows?” “You’re not old,” she said. “It’s good you think that. We’ll be great pards now.... Look, Genie! Look at that humming bird! There, he darts over the water. Well! What’s he doing?” Adam’s quick ear had caught the metallic hum of tiny, swift wings. Then he had seen a humming bird poised over the water. As he called Genie’s attention it hummed away. Then, swift as a glancing ray, it returned. Adam could see the blur of its almost invisible wings. As it quivered there, golden throat shining like live fire, with bronze and green and amber tints so vivid in the sunlight, it surely was worthy reason for a worship of nature. Not only had it beauty, but it had singular action. It poised, then darted down, swift as light, to disturb the smooth water, either with piercing bill or flying wings. Time and again the tiny bird performed this antic. Was the diminutive-winged creature playing, or drinking, or performing gyrations for the edification of a female of his species, hidden somewhere in the overhanging foliage? Adam knew that some courting male birds cooed, paraded, strutted, fought before the females they hoped to make consorts. Why not a humming bird? “By your great horn spoon, Genie!” exclaimed Adam. “I wonder if that’s the way he drinks.” But all that Adam could be sure of was the beautiful opal body of the tiny bird, the marvelous poise as it hung suspended in air, the incredibly swift darts up and down, and the little widening, circling ripples on the water. No, there was more Adam could be sure of, and Genie’s delight proved the truth of it--and that was how sure the harvest of thought, how sure the joy of life which was the reward for watching! * * * * *