MY HUMMING BIRDS. 
99 
the earth," if this be so. But, if there be no fairies, and 
these be only natural forces that propel it so, is nectar, or 
ambrosia even, food of the substance that could give the 
steely toughness to those hair-spring thews, whose sharp 
stroke cuts a resistless way through hurricanes ? 
These, and a thousand such questions, thronged upon me 
in those innocent times, but my most eager and continued 
inquiries were — How did they come ? "Were they born so, 
all bright and ready ? Or did they come like other birds ? 
I could find other birds' nests and eggs, and I understood 
how they came ; but I never could find a humming bird's 
nest. 
Nor could I find any one else who ever had found one. 
There were traditions that somebody's grandfather had heard 
a very old man say, that he had heard it once upon a time, 
from an old witch-woman, that to find a humming bird's 
nest, was as much a sign of good luck as reaching the end 
of a rainbow — ^that you were sure to get a heap of diamonds 
from it, instead of the bag of gold. Well, as I was for many 
a year, until I actually did stand with my feet upon the end 
of a rainbow, a devout believer in that same bag of gold, 
why should I not also have faith in that nest of diamonds ? 
This may seem like hazarding assertion for fact. I pledge 
my personal veracity for the truth of the following simple 
relation of an incident happening to myself. I was, when 
twenty years of age, passing on horseback from my native 
town, Hopkinsville, Ky., to a neighboring town, Clarksville, 
Tenn. When about half way, I was suddenly overtaken by 
one of those swift summer storms, peculiar to the South. I 
was then in the lane of a very large tobacco plantation, and 
knowing that I could obtain shelter in a country store near 
the end of it, I urged my horse into a run, and was soon 
there. I sprang down upon the low steps, and pushed my 
way through the crowd of farmers collected at the door — as 
people instinctively do, during a thunder storm, to witness 
its progress. I stood just within the door sill, where I had 
