Evening star., 1944-01-07
This and That
Bu Charles Z. Trace1ueH.

Templeton Jones seldom dreams, but
the saying goes.
His latest has to do with birds. Now
Jones has no interest in birds. CThis
ought to convince any reader that Jones
and the writer here are two distinct
personalitieS)
Jones sometimes wonders what is all
this bother about birds.
80 birds consume insect pests, and
eat tons of inimical weed seeds annually,
do they?" sneers Jones, who Is, after all,
not very good sneerer.
so what?" he continues, in the best
modern manner.
1t was hummingbird Jones dreamed
about.
When he went to bed there was nice
coat of sleet on the ground.
1t was not very thick, but it was caus-
ing hundreds of traffic accidents, and
thousands of near accidents which never
got into the paper Only in motorists
hair, as another saying has it.
1t was no such landscape as any re-
spectacle hummingbird would be caught
in, if it could help It,
Yet one of these fairylike birds came
that night, at some time after midnight,
as far as Templeton Jones could esti-
mate it, and put on show for him.
1t was dream bird, OF course, not
the real thing, but it seemed very real
in the dream.
Jones was standing on some steps
leading down to beautiful garden.
1t was very expensive place and
Jones wondered what he was doing
there. Jones, himself, along with the
majority of mankind, has always been
just one jump ahead of the poorhouse,
only no one would be so crude as to
call it "poorhouse" any more.
Jones stood looking down into the
beautiful garden, filled with soft air
and lovely flowers and green shrubbery.
Over to one side was high brick wall,
covered with ivy.
What attracted his attention, however,
was not the wall nor the ivy, but a
strange affair fixed in the wall at about
shoulder height.
This affair was bank of small boxes,
somewhat resembling the boxes at post
office, or even the boxes in a safety
place in the bank.
These boxes were closed tight.
Just as Jones was about to ask what
the boxes were for he saw humming-
bird winging his way across the yard.
The bird had penny in its bill
1t was a genuine one-cent piece, of
the old type, and Jones couldn't be
bothered to argue whether it was correct
to call it penny.
He didn't care.
1t was penny to him, no matter what
it was to the purist.
What it was to the hummingbird was
another matter.
He was soon to see, for the hummer
flew over to the bank of boxes, and
hovered in front of them, still with his
coin firmly clasped in his bill
1t never occurred to Templeton Jones,
at the time, to ask where the bird got
the penny.
This was an oversight, he was to real
ize later, because every one to whom
he told his dream wanted to know at
once, just one thing:
Where did the hummingbird get the
penny?"
Jones didn't know where the bird got
the penny, and he didn't care, then or
later.
He was amazed and delighted to see
what the hummingbird did with it.
1t put the penny into a SLOT
Open came one of the small doors,
and out popped small vial of nectar,
held on slim rod.
The hummingbird, in its best fashion,
hovered over the vial, as it dipped its
bill into the sweet food.
Then the bird flew away, and the box
closed up. And now everybody wants to
know, OF all things, where the creature
got the pennyl