Part 3

“Some say he is good—some say that he is bad. I only know him as the chopper of weeds about our home and as my rescuer. Many times since the day he saved me have I heard him shooting bee-hawks. Indeed, I had heard the little thunder of his gun before that day, but I did not understand its meaning. They say, too, that he takes away our honey—and he did take some of ours once—and frightens us nearly to death with the prospect of starvation. And they fall upon him and sting him, trying to drive him away. But all this is useless, they report, since he comes armed with fire and smoke.

“Others tell of him that in the dark, cold days, if provisions run low, he brings honey and closes the door against blizzards. But I know nothing of this. I have not lived through a winter and I fear I shall never know what it means.”

Thus I became infinitely interested in the Master who passed from day to day about the yard. But I was confused in mind about him. Somehow I instinctively feared him and I always found myself ready to attack him, as I explained to Crip.

“There would be no use in that,” answered he. “Should you sting him, you would achieve nothing. Instead, you would lose your life.”

“How is that?” I cried, for I did not till then know I had a life—at least I had never thought of it.

“You can sting once, but unless you escape with your stinger, which is rare, your life is sacrificed.”

I seemed to know this and answered him nothing.

“Is it not a strange fatality,” he continued, “that we should be given stingers with which to defend ourselves and our homes, and yet, when we make use of them, we lose our lives! Still, we are always ready to strike, with no thought of death.”

“What is death?” I asked of Crip.

“I don’t know, except that once when the bee-hawk caught me I felt myself going away. It grew dark and I heard the hum of wings that were strange and wonderful. Somehow you go to sleep and forget.”

“I have thought of death,” he went on. “I am old and battered, my days are as the falling flowers when the frost is upon them, and the frost soon will fall.”

I waited awhile in silence, but he spoke no more. Soon he lay in that buzzing hive, asleep, and I was not long in following him to where the golden honey dripped in the garden of dreams.

We awakened about the same time and began to stir about. The first thing that happened was a new experience—the wax-pickers fell upon me and raked and scraped me for the tiny bits of wax which now, on account of my voracious appetite, had begun to grow in each of the rings marking the under sections of my body. They were so rude that at first I was inclined to resent their interference, which seemed to be mere meddling. But when I looked at Crip and saw two busy wax-pickers fumbling over him, I began to understand that this was part of a routine, and so I stood still until they had finished.

“They won’t bother with me much longer,” said Crip, sadly. “You see, when one becomes old the wax grows thinly—so the pickers give over. But you! They’ll get you. I have noticed that you are rather greedy about eating honey. This means you’ll get fat and produce lots of wax.”

“Tell me about wax and comb,” I begged of him.

“Comb, my child, is made of wax; this is comb on which you are standing. It is everywhere about you. The cups that hold our honey and our bread are made of it. The cell in which you were born is of wax; and, besides, it is used to stop the holes in our house. Of course there are different kinds of comb, depending on the use to which it is put. Why, these sheets of comb with their six-sided cells are wonderful in their economy, in their plan and symmetry. The cell we build is perfect. No other structure would serve our purposes, combining such strength and capacity. The cell is indispensable to the life of the bee!—otherwise he could not exist. So don’t let me see you make ready to fight the next time the wax-pickers approach, and they’ll soon be after you again.”

I answered nothing. I was wondering in what far age we had learned to build the six-sided cell, and in what tiny brain it had been conceived. They fit so perfectly, I stood quite still marveling at the harmony of it all and wondering how many things there remained for me to learn. At every turn I had been confronted with something new. And was it to be so to the end? What could the end be, of which Crip frequently spoke?

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Two months—glorious with flowers, but ending in disaster.”

“What disaster?”

“Well, you saw the close of it—the death of our colony.”

“Yes, I remember,” I said. But he was so wise I could scarcely believe that he was but two months old, for he seemed so tattered of wing and battered of body!

Without thinking what we were about, we drew near the door. Groups of workers were banked about the entrance, waiting impatiently to be away at the first streaks of dawn. Presently a note like a bugle-call sounded, and immediately the face of things was changed. By twos and threes and fours the workers took wing and scurried into the fields.

A dull gray light lay on the world; the air was damp and moved lazily out of the east; the dew had fallen thick on the flowers and now began to twinkle from myriad angles. Crip and I had left the hive at the same instant, but once on the wing I forgot all about him and flew like mad this way and that until I caught a whiff of fragrance from an unexplored meadow, and thither I hastened. Strange and thrilling sensation! I had not until now felt the joy of dipping into the flowers and searching out their honey-pots. It was a field of late sunflowers, and all of them had their faces toward the east, eager to look upon the sun. Joyfully they waved in the breeze and beckoned to one another as if to say: “Good morning. How glorious is the sun, our king!” In spite of the dew on their faces, some of them already were wearing the brand of the hot summer, which had all but gone and left them beseeching of autumn her tender graces.

“I am old and frayed,” I heard one say, “and these mornings chill me, but my work is done. The heart and soul of me are here; I shall not pass; I shall endure; my seed shall spring up to brighten the world.”

“But I am young,” a tender blossom said, “and I shall be cut off. The frost will slay me and I shall have rattled down to dust ere my soul has developed its immortal parts.”

At the moment I was taking honey from its lips, and I felt a quivering as if its heart fluttered.

“Dear little flower,” I said, “you are living your life; you cannot die; you will be swallowed up in the universal spirit of things. Your face has spread a glamour of gold in the world; your honey has nourished a thousand winged things; your scented breath has floated far and has carried blessings into silent places. Memory of you will linger; it will be preserved by the things you have fed, by the things you have gladdened. And, too, I promise that I shall remember you!”

“How can you remember me,” the flower asked, “when you, too, are doomed?”

“What!” I cried. “Doomed! Why, I am young, I am swift, I am beautiful, I am glorious!”

“Yes, and so am I. But we pass.”

“You are wise for so young a flower,” spoke up the elder blossom. “Both of you are of the heavens; both have your lives before you in this tiny garden, ere you return to the golden fields that spread out toward the sun. You are immortal.”

Just then I saw one of the petals blow away from the face of the elder flower. It fluttered and fluttered and finally fell to the earth. Scarcely had it struck the ground when something with a long, thin body and active legs seized it and began struggling to draw it through the grass, intent on some mysterious purpose. I was quite absorbed, and from my post of vantage on the breast of the floweret I followed the movements of the thing that tugged at the petal. I had never seen this thing before and I was wishing for Crip, when, behold! he appeared.

“What are you doing?” he cried at me. “How many loads have you gathered? What are you staring at?”

He had submerged me with questions. I answered none of them. I had, indeed, forgotten my work momentarily, so absorbed had I been in the talk of the flowers.

“Have you a load? Let’s go,” cried he.

I was ready, truly, but I could not refrain from asking him about this strange animal that pulled the leaf so sedulously through the grass.

“An ant!” Crip answered, rather glumly.

“Do you see what he is about?”

“Yes he is gathering his winter stores. A time comes when he must go indoors and he must have food even as you and I. Come now, let’s be off.”

I looked down at the ant struggling with his burden and then at the disheveled flower, casting a last glance at the tender face which had yielded up honey to me, wondering at the strangeness of it all.

“Come on,” cried Crip, rising on wing.

I did not speak, but followed him. I flew at his heels until he began to fag a bit and then I came up alongside, careful, however, not to outdistance him. I soon saw that he had a heavier load than I, and I felt ashamed, but I knew this had come through my having wasted a few minutes, and I resolved then and there that the next time I should be first.

Another thing I noticed, we were flying very low, so near the earth we almost brushed the tops of the bushes. I asked Crip the reason.

“The wind,” he answered, in better humor than could have been expected. “Don’t you feel that heavy head current? If you should go up it would be a hard fight home with these loads. You see, there are currents and currents,” he went on, “and you must use your wits. Take the current that blows your way. Profit by whatever nature bestows.”

Almost at once I saw the yard with its white hives, like dots, and the Master with the Little One and the dog that seemed always with them. The next moment Crip and I were dropping down to our hive. I was overjoyed when I fell upon the alighting-board, and could not restrain my exuberance of feeling. So I bowed my head humbly as best I might with the load I carried, uttering a hymn of thanksgiving—the very hymn, Crip told me, that every worker for a million years had uttered on returning to his hive with his first load of honey. I cannot explain, but some mysterious force seized me, compelling me to bow my head and to sing. I should have done it had it cost my life. Such is the law of the hive, just as there is the law of the jungle. I did not know why I was so happy, but something bubbled over in me, and the very intoxication of it finally sent me running madly to deposit my load in a waiting cell, and once more to take wing for the field of the flowers of the sun.

On my way back the first rays of light caught the topmost branches of the trees and gilded the flying clouds in the east. Far in the west, black and forbidding masses of cloud were gathering, and the wind, I observed, had shifted its course. Again I had lost Crip, and I was regretful, for there were questions which only he could answer. But I flew all the faster for being alone, and soon found the very place and the very flowers I had visited before. Speedily I took my load, but I could not fail to return to the flowers I had come to love. Other petals from the elder had fluttered away, due either to the eager foraging of bees or to the gusty impatience of the wind. The younger had opened wider her heart to the sun.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, sweetly. “All that I have I yield up to you gladly. This is my end. Oh, how glorious is life! How splendid to be able to give of one’s store so that life shall go on eternally!”

“Yes, eternally,” echoed the elder blossom. “Even I, in dying, leave my seed behind to follow the summer suns through numberless ages; and I breathe into the world an imperishable fragrance. It shall be wafted to the utmost bounds; it shall gladden the hearts of the lowliest. Though it be scattered by the winds, it shall not cease to exist.”

By this time I had filled my honey-sac, and, after flying three times around these two well-beloved blossoms, I made for home. I was depressed by the talk which I had heard. I could not wholly comprehend it, and I wanted to consult Crip.

I was not long reaching our hive, for the wind seemed to get under me and literally to blow me on. I deposited my treasure, hurried out again, and once more headed for the sunflower-field, where I quickly gathered a load. Then straight for home. It was difficult flying now, because the wind was in my face. I rose higher, following Crip’s advice, but still it blew and almost beat me back. The black clouds which I remembered having seen in the west seemed almost over me, and suddenly terrific noises crashed around. It grew dark and great flashes of fire tore the heavens apart and blinded me.

This terrified me. I knew not its meaning, but instinctively I fled homeward. But my progress was slow, and I had not gone far when again the whole world seemed to tremble, shaken through and through by the most violent rumblings conceivable. It grew so dark I almost stopped in my flight, not sure of my way. At this moment of hesitation something struck me squarely in the back, almost knocking me down. It had been a great drop of water, and almost immediately others began to pelt me. Soaking wet and tossed by the gale, I was forced to alight. As I dropped downward I saw nothing but black shadows, and presently I was dashed into a great tree. I seized a branch that offered shelter, which proved to be none too well protected against the blast that now drove the rain in solid sheets. I was cold, and clambered around to the under side of the limb, and there, feeling none too secure, I grudgingly deposited some of my honey in a crevice. By lightening my load I was better able to keep my balance; but so gusty was the blast that it whipped the rain all over me, and I was unable to find a spot that was dry. I began to climb from one branch to another in the hope of reaching a safer haven, but, alas! none was to be found.

Worse things, too, were awaiting me. I was crying for Crip when the branch to which I clung suddenly snapped. Down and down it fell while I clung to it. I was too cold and wet to try to take wing, and presently the branch crashed into a swirling stream of water. At first I was entirely submerged. It seemed an interminable time that I stayed under the water; but presently I came to the surface and caught my breath. Cold as I was, I still clung with all the tenacity of my being to the floating branch that was hurried onward by the raging torrent. I was beginning to feel a little more comfortable when over went the branch again in the seething water, and again I seemed to go down to immeasurable depths. This time I felt my legs giving way in the rush of the waters. My head swam and I strangled, but just as it seemed all over with me the branch again came to the surface. I caught my breath, shifted slightly my footing, and hurriedly emptied my honey-sac. This gave me more confidence in spite of the numbness that had nearly overcome me from the cold and water. There I sat shaking, awaiting the next turn of the branch, which now seemed merely to be bobbing up and down in the waters. The wind was still whistling through the trees, the rain was falling in torrents, and the thunder rumbled in unabated violence.

How long I clung to the branch in desperation I do not know. But after a time the rain ceased, the wind fell to a whimper among the bushes, and the darkness broke along the horizon. It began to grow a little brighter. Imagine my joy, therefore, to find that my perch was now quite clear of the flood waters, the branch safely nestling in the top of a bush. In a short space it grew warmer, and I took courage; I began to dry myself and to preen my wings. The light gained, and before long, after trying out my strength, I found that I could again mount into the air, and with one wide sweep I made for home.

I flew with all my speed, and I was almost overcome with joy when I saw my house. I noticed, too, as I approached, the Master bending over a neighboring hive, and I wondered what was the matter. But on alighting I was too happy to inquire about anything. I rushed inside and sang a song of thanksgiving at my deliverance.

Then I bolted straight for my cell to find my beloved Crip. He welcomed me with joy.

“Well,” said he, “I feared you were lost. You ought to have come home before the storm broke. But I’m happy you escaped. The next time you see great piles of cloud, make haste homeward. Your life is too precious to lose through stupidity.”

He came close and gave me a kiss, drawing his tongue across my mouth. The taste of honey excited me, and immediately I dropped into a cell and helped myself. I still felt stiff and cold from my experiences, and complained to Crip.

“It might have been worse,” he said, when I had told him all that had befallen me. “If you live long enough you will have some real adventures,” he concluded.

I was inclined to resent his comment, for I felt that I should never again pass through such a storm and survive.

“Do you know what a real storm is, Crip?” I asked, with offended pride. But he ignored my query.

“Listen,” he said, suddenly. “Do you hear that alarm?”

A note I had heard before suddenly ran through the hive. I could not at first remember the occasion, but instantly both Crip and I were off. By the time we were out I remembered what the sound meant. It was the robber-call. There was honey at hand—pure honey for the taking, and off we went.

It was just where the Master stood. He had righted a hive which had blown down in the storm, and was endeavoring to place a net over it, but already thousands of bees were swarming about.

“It is too late,” Crip said to me, as we lit on the bottom-board and hurried into the hive. “They are dead. I see it all. The rains undermined the foundations and the hive toppled over into the ditch. The storm waters crept up and up, submerging it.”

A little honey remained in the old combs, and we were soon busy with its salvage. We helped ourselves to one load only, for when we returned the Master had covered over the hive with his net. We flew about the place for a while, hoping to find some tiny hole through which we might creep; but none could be found. The net was covered with scrambling bees.

“Did all the bees drown?” I asked.

“Probably,” he answered.

“Here’s one on the ground that seems to be alive.”

We both lit beside the little fellow struggling to dry himself. We approached and licked him all over, and when he could fly Crip begged him to come home with us, since his own colony had ceased to exist.

Right gladly he followed us; but when we had reached the entrance he seemed to realize the seriousness of daring to enter a strange hive. He drew back, but we urged him, standing one on either side. Almost immediately, however, a guard scented him and flew at him. Crip headed him off, but another quickly attacked from the same quarter. He caught the stranger, and it was all I could do to save him. When we finally freed him of the advance guards, we said to the stranger, “Run for your life!”

We three rushed like mad into the hive and escaped further interference, and never again was he questioned as to his identity.

He marched with us straight up to our cell, and thenceforward he claimed it for his own.

“What shall we call him?” I asked of Crip, when we had left him to recover and were once more on our way to the fields.

“Let’s see. Suppose we call him Buzz-Buzz.”

“Excellent!” I cried.

So, Buzz-Buzz it was, then and ever after.

Crip and I reached the entrance and looked about us. Mountainous black clouds still frowned, and in the distance thunder rumbled. It was much brighter, but still the sun was hid and a haze of mist hung about the world as far as eye could see.

“We cannot safely go yet,” cried Crip. “The storm might break again. Besides, there is no honey in the fields; it has been washed away by the rains. It will be several hours before a trace can be found; even a day or two will pass ere some of the flowers fill their cups. The rain destroys the flow of honey for a time, and too much rain will cut off the crop entirely.”

While we were talking Buzz-Buzz approached. “Well,” he said, “you ran away and left me, but I warn you that when there are things to do you will find me close to you.”

Presently we all rose on our wings, for the rain seemed to have spent itself and the wind in the catclaw tree had fallen to a whisper. The three of us flew, for a while keeping closely in touch, but I was determined to guide, and had set my mind on seeing my sunflower-field. I feared, and, as it proved, rightly, that the floods had swept them away. On reaching the spot where the beautiful flowers had grown, we found it a quagmire full of broken stalks. Nothing was there to remind of the fragrant and glorious garden which only this day had displayed its choicest blossoms to gladden the earth. And now all had vanished.

I said not a word, but Crip seemed to divine the reason which inspired my flying round and round about the spot where I had gathered my first load of honey and where I had heard the fascinating speech of the flowers of the sun. He circled about with me, while Buzz-Buzz, puzzled at our actions, sailed in wider curves. He did not lose sight of us, however, and presently joined us again.

“What’s all this about?” he queried.

“Why, only to-day this spot was wonderful with flowers. Look at it now!” I had spoken.

“That is nothing extraordinary,” observed Crip. “It is only a chapter out of any life you choose. They had achieved all the things for which they were sent into the world. They were ready to go.”

It was hard for me to think that the tender little blossom which had given me honey had filled its full scope of existence. It seemed fit for days of service. What a pity that it was not permitted to radiate its beauty in a world all too barren!

We said very little more, but made for home. This must have been instinctive, for suddenly we found the darkness descending upon us like a flood.

We reached home quickly and were making our way along the combs, when I was accosted by a pretentious bee.

“It’s your turn to nurse. Come with me. This shall be your section. These little ones are to be fed to-night.”

“Well, with what shall I feed them?” I asked, impulsively, somewhat irritated to think that I, a honey-gatherer, should be set at such a task.

In answer to my question I got only a look; but I shall not forget it—it was withering. I felt ashamed of myself; and I resolved never again to question an assignment of duty.

Immediately I set about my task. Without thinking, I peeped into two or three cells and found that the bees allotted to me were but four days old. Miraculous as it may seem, while I knew nothing about preparing food for the young, I fell to it with zest. Taking a supply of honey from one cell, I sought one stored with pollen; and there, without ceremony, I began to mix honey and bread, making a thin paste to which I had to add ever so little water. Then I placed the least bit of it in each of the cells of my section. The tiny worm-like bees began to wriggle, so I knew at once that I had succeeded in my task.