Life became now a problem of supply and demand, only a clearer expression of the one that has from all time agitated humanity. Then began that marvel of marvels, the feeding of the newly hatched birds. It was hardly worth while to question the wisdom of the process, though I confess that after each feeding I expected only two little mangled corpses would remain!
The food, partially digested in the mother's stomach, was given by regurgitation, her beak being thrust so far down their throats that I surmised it would pierce the bottom of the nest, to say nothing of the frail bodies churned violently up and down meanwhile. The great wonder was that the infants survived this seemingly brutal and dangerous exercise in which they were sometimes lifted above the nest, the food being given alternately at intervals of half an hour to an hour. They thrived, however, under a treatment that gave strength to the muscles, besides aiding in the digestion of food.
From the first, the comparative length of beak was their most noticeable feature, the proportion becoming less marked by the fourth day when fine hairy pin-feathers appeared, these increasing in size and reinforced by a decided plumage seen above the rim of the nest before the second week ended.
By the ninth day they attempted their first toilet, drawing the incipient feathers, mere hairs, through the beak, and on the tenth day, more surprising still, they had found their voices. Several times daily the branch was pulled down to the level of my eyes, the twins regarding me with the surprise and innocence of babyhood, sinking low into the nest meanwhile, and emitting a plaintive cry almost human in its pathos and expression.
So far as I know no observer has recorded this pleading, pathetic note from the infant hummers so noticeable whenever I came too near. The branch replaced and the disturbing element removed, they reappeared above the nest's rim, the slight form of the mother palpitant as she hovered near. Early in their lives when a cold rain followed the long drouth, her enforced absences were brief; hasty trips merely to the flower garden in the rear of the house, or to the flowering beans in the next yard, a favorite lunch counter patronized every hour ordinarily.
The leaf that served to so good purpose in the sunny days became heavy with raindrops, tilted to one side, and little streams trickled down upon her back and ran off her tail, while big drops splashing down from the higher branches threatened to annihilate the whole affair. Undaunted still, my Lilliputian mother hugged her precious charges, with drooping tail hanging over the edge of the nest, head drawn into her feathers, her whole appearance as limp and bedraggled as a hen caught out in a shower. When the infants had seen two weeks of life they refused to be longer brooded. From this time on they matured rapidly, filling the nest so full that my lady found no place for the sole of her foot, and often alighted upon their backs to give them food. In four days more their baby dresses were quite outgrown. These were replaced by green graduating gowns of stylish texture and fit, and, as my bird book stated that young hummers left the nest when a week old, I was watching eagerly for their debut.
Long before this the nest proper began to show signs of hard service. Before its occupants left it became a thing of the past, positively dissolving to a mere shelf or platform, and one side falling out entirely, the imperturbable twins sitting or standing upon what remained, content in the silence that all completed tasks deserve.
As I have said before, one of these little grown-ups surpassed the other in size and vigor, insisting gently or forcibly upon the best standing-place, and vibrating its wings for several seconds at a time. Plainly this one would be the first to launch upon the world.
Twenty-two days after hatching it spread its wings without apparent effort and alighted upon a neighboring twig. Clearly, life was regarded from a mature standard as it preened its plumage and looked about with an undaunted air.