"Craw * * * craw * * * craw! What's the matter with my eyes? It looks very dark, for a clear summer's day. I must be getting old, for it ain't more than ten o'clock, and it seems exactly like sundown. Craw * * * craw * * * craw! Why, it's getting cold. It seems as chill as evening. Cut, cut, cudawcut! What can be the matter? Why, the sun is going to bed before it's fairly got up. Cur—r-r-r-r-r! Well, after all, it may be only a fit of the vapors—or my gizzard may be put out of order by that toad I ate yesterday. I thought, then, I should pay dear for it. Cur—r-r-r-r-r? Here chicks—come under my wings! I'm going to take a nap. Come along—Nip, Dip, Pip, Rip—come into your featherbed, my little dearies! There! Don't stick your noses out—be still now—I'm going to sing a song.
Hush, my chickies—don't you peep—
Hush, my children—go to sleep!
Now the night is dark and thick—
Go to sleep each little chick!
*****
Fiddle-de-dee—I can't sleep, and the chickens are as lively as bed-bugs. Cut—cut—cu—daw—cut! What on airth is the matter! The sun has got put out, right up there in the sky, just like a candle. Well—never did I see or hear of such a thing afore! And now it's night in the middle of the day! What will come next? Why, I expect I shall walk on my head, and fly with my claws! It ain't half fair, to shave an old hen and chickens out of their dinner and supper in this way. However, it's too dark for decent people to be abroad. So, my chicks, we must get into the coop and go to rest. Cur—r-r-r-r—it's very queer indeed. How thankful I am that I don't make day and night, and get the world into such a scrape as this. Come in! Come in, chicks! It ain't our affair. Come along—there—you rowdies! You ain't sleepy, and I don't wonder at it. But hens and chickens must go to bed when the lamp is put out. Cur—r-r-r-r-r."
PART II.
REFLECTIONS OF A PHILOSOPHER UPON A BLADE OF GRASS.
Here is a leaf, which we call a blade of grass. There are myriads like it in this field; it seems a trifle; it seems insignificant. But let me look at it with my glass. How wonderful is its texture! It seems woven like network, and nothing can exceed the beauty of its structure. And yet every blade of grass is like this. It exceeds all human art in the delicacy of its fabric, yet it grows here out of the ground. Grows! What does that mean? What makes it grow? Has it life? It must have life, or it could not grow. And what is that life? It cannot think; it cannot walk; who makes it grow then? Who made this blade of grass? It was not man; it is not the beast of the field. It is God who made it! And is God here in the field, all around me—in every blade of grass, in every leaf, and stem, and flower?
It must be so, indeed. How full of instruction is every thing around us, if we use the powers we possess!
Moral. Some people believe, that birds and beasts have minds and souls as well as human beings; but we see that the most stupendous wonder of nature excited in one of the most intelligent and civilized of birds, only a queer sort of surprise, expressed in the words cut—cut—cu—dawcut! At the same time it appears that a single blade of grass opens to the philosopher a sublime strain of thought, teaching the profound lesson that God is everywhere!
Is there not a gulf as wide as eternity, between the human soul and animal instinct?