Little Coquette Humming Bird sat watching her brother Helenae—what a queer name for a boy Humming Bird, you think—but probably his parents gave it to him because he was always prinking and preening his feathers. "Just like a girl," his brothers said. But however much Coquette might preen her feathers, she never looked as beautiful as her brother Helenae, and that was what she was thinking about as she watched him. He carefully arranged the three long, slender, greenish-black feathers which grew on either side of his head, and the metallic green feathers of his throat were so glistening and bright that little Coquette imagined she could see herself in them as she could in a little spring where she often went for a drink. After Helenae had finished his toilet he moved his wings very rapidly a few times, and raised himself up as high as he could on his feet without taking them off the limb on which he sat, then he settled down, closing his eyes for a moment. Just then Coquette cried out: "The Swifts are coming! Look, no one else could fly so fast! There they are near those old mahogany trees on the bank of the river." There was a grand rustle of preparation that everything might be in order and every one look his best when the cousins arrived. In a few moments mamma Swift and her daughter Cyprelus came, alighting on the same branch together. Then there was a whir of wings that sounded like the wind flapping the sails on a sail-boat, and there was an excited chirping of welcomes and "Merry Christmas" on both sides.
Grandfather Humming Bird was a good story-teller, and his wife, who was the dearest old lady Humming Bird in the world, had often advised him to write a book of his travels on the leaves of the lovely rose-laurel bush, but Grandfather Humming Bird told her that writing books of travel was too humdrum for a Humming Bird; that such work was only for that queer creature called man. Several Humming Birds then said that they felt very friendly toward man, because he loved flowers and took such pains to plant them every spring. And the Swifts, with one accord, said they were much indebted to man for his chimneys, for they made the best building places possible. "Before the white man came to this country," said grandfather Swift, "our ancestors had to build their nests in old hollow trees." "The red man was an admirer of ours," said uncle Tarsi Swift, who was an old bachelor and a little cross sometimes. "I could get along very well without the white man and his chimneys. He has driven the red man away, and cut down the grand old forests. When I was a child nothing pleased me better than to see an Indian chief, with his high moccasins trimmed with feathers. I know he trimmed them that way to make his legs look like ours." "But he could not make his feet look like yours if he tried," spoke up a pert young Humming Bird, who, with a group of others, was looking and listening in a quiet corner, and he glanced down at uncle Tarsi Swift's first toe, which was turned forwards and he counted the phalanges in uncle Tarsi's toes and compared them with his own. Three of Uncle Tarsi's toes were alike, but all of the pert Humming Bird's were different.
"No," said several Swifts in chorus, "only the penguins and cormorants have toes like ours, and they are birds we seldom meet. We are glad there are so few feet exactly like ours. We can tell each other everywhere by our feet and our ten tail feathers.
"I knew a swallow once who had lost two tail feathers," said one of the Swift cousins, "and he tried to pass himself off as a Swift. But he could not change his feet and so he deceived nobody.
"Well, as for me," said the pert Humming Bird, "I would rather have feet that were not so peculiar as to attract everybody's attention." "Indeed," said cousin Swift, "and what do you think of having a bill three or four times as long as any of your neighbors?" "At least my bill does not open away under my eyes like yours does, cousin Swift!"
Grandmamma Humming Bird knew very well that the Humming Bird family was thought to be quarrelsome by almost every one, and was very much mortified by hearing this conversation. "Children," she said, "you know it is not right to hurt people's feelings by talking about their peculiarities, and I hope none of my dear little Humming Birds will offend their Christmas guests." After this there was no more cross talk in the pert Humming Bird's corner, for all loved grandmother Humming Bird and tried to do as she wished to have them.
There was a sudden lull in the conversation and great-grandfather Humming Bird asked grandfather Humming Bird to describe the place where his family had spent the summer just passed. "It was a lovely place near a lake in Southern Wisconsin," said he. "Many honeysuckle and dogwood bushes grew there, and wild rose bushes, and wild grape vines, and clematis, and large purple vetches. Grandmother and I built our nest in a grapevine angle, and often in the warm summer evenings the wind would rock our babies to sleep. There was a place not far away, which I know you would find a pleasant home for next summer. It is up on a hill, not far from the lake. There is a house there with one chimney from which the smoke never comes all summer long. In the big yard there are beautiful trees and fragrant flowering shrubs and beds filled with flowers. A lady lives there who is loved by all the birds, for she never frightens them, and every day she feeds them and talks to them. So they build nests in her trees and sing for her.
"This summer, in a beautiful shady place, near a syringa thicket, she made a house out of a big box for a mother hen who had fifteen little downy chicks, and every day when she fed the chickens she left enough food so that the birds could have some, too. And all, even the little yellow canaries, used to help themselves. This did not please the old mother hen very well, and if she could have gotten out of her box-house, I think she would have chased the birds away. One day a bold blackbird walked into her house to get some grains of corn, when he thought she was not looking. But before he could get out again she pulled three feathers out of his tail and laid them down, as a warning, where all the other birds could see them. I heard the lady afterwards telling the mother hen that she must not be so selfish, and the next time she fed the chickens she put several handfuls of corn where the blackbirds could get it, without having their tail-feathers pulled out. I have seen the lady put pieces of string and bits of soft cotton cloth and old rope where the birds could get them, to help make their nests. And I saw her feeding a little orphan owl with angle worms. The little owl was very fond of her and sat on her fingers and twisted his neck and winked his great eyes. Whenever he heard her talking he gave a queer little screech, for he knew her voice. He was a great eater and he expected her to give him something to eat every time she went where he was. One day that lady was sitting on her porch listening to the birds singing. At one end of the porch was a large lilac bush in full bloom, and I was enjoying myself among the blossoms. Once in a while I would fly to a flower bed not far from the opposite end of the porch, where there was a big bunch of belladonna with its lovely blue and mauve blossoms. The lady seemed to like lilacs best, for she had fastened a large bunch in her belt, and sat with her hands folded in her lap, dreaming a day dream, I suppose.
Once, on my way from the flower-bed to the lilac bush, I flew up to the bunch of blossoms which the lady had in her belt. You know I am seldom afraid of anything and I knew the dear lady would not harm me. But she seemed very much surprised when I stopped at her bunch of blossoms. 'O-o-h!' she said, but very softly, and unclasped her hands in her surprise. I flew away quickly to the lilac bush, and after a while I looked at the lady and she was smiling pleasantly and watching me."
When grandfather Humming Bird had said all this, he flew away to another branch of the oak tree and moved his wings so fast that one could not see how he did it. Papa Swift thanked him for the pleasure he had given by his stories of his last summer's home, and it was finally agreed that the Swifts and Humming Birds should start together for the north in the spring.