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                        OUR YOUNG FOLKS.

                   _An Illustrated Magazine_

                      FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.


VOL. I.                  JANUARY, 1865.                   NO. I.




HUM, THE SON OF BUZ.


At Rye Beach, during our summer's vacation, there came, as there always
will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,--days
when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to
bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by
drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water
dashed along the ground, and careered in foamy rills along the roadside,
and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there
was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so,
shivering and drawing our blanket-shawls close about us, we sat down to
the window to watch the storm outside. The rose-bushes under the window
hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a
constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays,
under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little
humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging
with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we
knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued
down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as
different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that
we had so often seen flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a
humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to
us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, we sent out to have him
taken in. When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint,
watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that
grim Death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds. What a
time we had reviving him,--holding the little wet thing in the warm
hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate! His eyes were
fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were
knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the
least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little
kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the
beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he
meant at any rate to find out where he was.

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,