Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/277

248 spider ran up a tall grass blade, rested a moment, and then ran off, through empty air, to another blade, six inches off. I looked closer; surely he must have a fine line stretched between those points, I thought. No; the closest scrutiny could find none. I watched him; he was soon off again, straight for another point, a foot above the ground, running on clear space, and turning down and hanging to it, like a monkey, but still going ahead. I called Guiteras, and he came and saw and examined, and smiled in his wise way when he don't know. We could not see the little fellow's cable, or railway, or bridge. He was as much finer than we as we are finer than mastodons.

And the birds, in that first rich morning speech of theirs, full of soft, bubbling joy, not singing, but softly and almost silently overflowing. Two little fellows flew rapidly down to a twig near us, and began bubble-bubbling as if in a great flutter and hurry; and immediately they flew far and high, as for a long journey; at which my philosophic friend moralized:

"Those little fellows are like some canoeists who wake up, and don't wait for breakfast; but bubble-bubble, hurry-hurry, get-afloat, we-have-a-long-way-to-go! Now, we don't do that."

Indeed, we do not. This is what we do. We