Part 5

The flamingoes listened to what she said; but, stupidly, did not try to guess what she could have meant by such counsel. They saw no danger in the pretty stockings. Delightedly they doubled up their claws like fists, stuck them through the snakeskins, which were like so many long rubber tubes, and flew back as quickly as they could to the ball.

When the guests at the dance saw the flamingoes in such handsome stockings, they were as jealous as could be. You see, the coral snakes were the lions of the evening, and after the flamingoes came back, they would dance with no one but the flamingoes. Remembering the instructions of the barn owl, the flamingoes kept their feet going all the time, and the snakes could not see very clearly just what those wonderful stockings were.

After a time, however, they grew suspicious. When a flamingo came dancing by, the snakes would get down off the ends of their tails to examine its feet more closely. The coral snakes, more than anybody else, began to get uneasy. They could not take their eyes off those stockings, and they got as near as they could, trying to touch the legs of the flamingoes with the tips of their tongues--for snakes use their tongues to feel with, much as people use their hands. But the flamingoes kept dancing and dancing all the while, though by this time they were getting so tired they were about ready to give up.

The coral snakes understood that sooner or later the flamingoes would have to stop. So they borrowed the lightning bugs from the frogs, to be ready when the flamingoes fell from sheer exhaustion.

And in fact, it was not long before one of the birds, all tired out, tripped over the cigar in an alligator's mouth, and fell down on her side. The coral snakes all ran toward her with their lanterns, and held the lightning bugs up so close that they could see the feet of the flamingo as clearly as could be.

"Aha! Aha! Stockings, eh? Stockings, eh?" The coral snakes began to hiss so loudly that people could hear them on the other side of the Parana.

The cry was taken up by all the snakes: "They are not wearing stockings! We know what they have done! The flamingoes have been killing brothers of ours, and they are wearing their skins as stockings! Those pretty legs each stand for the murder of a coral snake!"

At this uproar, the flamingoes took fright and tried to fly away. But they were so tired from all the dancing that not one of them could move a wing. The coral snakes darted upon them, and began to bite at their legs, tearing off the false stockings bit by bit, and, in their rage, sinking their fangs deep into the feet and legs of the flamingoes.

The flamingoes, terrified and mad with pain, hopped this way and that, trying to shake their enemies off. But the snakes did not let go till every last shred of stocking had been torn away. Then they crawled off, to rearrange their gauze costumes that had been much rumpled in the fray. They did not try to kill the flamingoes then and there; for most coral snakes are poisonous; and they were sure the birds they had bitten would die sooner or later anyway.

But the flamingoes did not die. They hopped down to the river and waded out into the water to relieve their pain. Their feet and legs, which had been white before, had now turned red from the poison in the bites. They stood there for days and days, trying to cool the burning ache, and hoping to wash out the red.

But they did not succeed. And they have not succeeded yet. The flamingoes still pass most of their time standing on their red legs out in the water. Occasionally they go ashore and walk up and down for a few moments to see if they are getting well. But the pain comes again at once, and they hurry back into the water. Even there they sometimes feel an ache in one of their feet; and they lift it out to warm it in their feathers. They stand that way on one leg for hours, I suppose because the other one is so stiff and lame.

That is why the flamingoes have red legs instead of white. And the fishes know it too. They keep coming up to the top of the water and crying "Red legs! Red legs! Red legs!" to make fun of the flamingoes for having tried to borrow costumes for a ball. On that account, the flamingoes are always at war with the fishes. As they wade up and down, and a fish comes up too close in order to shout "Red legs" at them, they dip their long bills down and catch it if they can.

THE LAZY BEE

In a beehive once there was a bee who would not work. She would go flying from blossom to blossom on the orange trees sucking out all the honey. But instead of taking it back to the hive she would eat it then and there.

She was a lazy bee. Every morning, the moment the sun had warmed the hive, she would come to the door and look out. On making sure that it was a lovely day, she would wash her face and comb her hair with her paws, the way flies do, and then go flitting off, as pleased as could be at the bright weather. So she would go buzzing and buzzing from flower to flower; and then after a time she would go back and see what the other bees were doing in the hive. So it would go on all day long.

Meantime the other bees would be working themselves to death trying to fill the hive full of honey; for honey is what they give the little bees to eat as soon as they are born. And these worker bees, very staid, respectable, earnest bees, began to scowl at the conduct of this shirker of a sister they had.

You must know that, at the door of every beehive, there are always a number of bees on watch, to see that no insects but bees get into the hive. These policemen, as a rule, are old bees, with a great deal of experience in life. Their backs are quite bald, because all the hair gets worn off from rubbing against the hive as they walk in and out of the door.

One day when the lazy bee was just dropping in to see what was going on in the hive, these policemen called her to one side:

"Sister," said they, "it is time you did a little work. All us bees have to work!"

The little bee was quite scared when the policemen spoke to her, but she answered:

"I go flying about all day long, and get very tired!"

"We didn't ask you how tired you got! We want to see how much work you can do! This is Warning Number 1!"

And they let her go on into the hive.

But the lazy little bee did not mend her ways. On the next evening the policemen stopped her again:

"Sister, we didn't see you working today!"

The little bee was expecting something of the kind, and she had been thinking up what she would say all the way home.

"I'll go to work one of these days," she spoke up promptly; and with a cheerful, winsome smile.

"We don't want you to go to work one of these days," they answered gruffly. "We want you to go to work tomorrow morning. This is Warning Number 2!"

And they let her in.

The following night, when the lazy bee came home, she did not wait for the policemen to stop her. She went up to them sorrowfully and said:

"Yes, yes! I remember what I promised. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to work today!"

"We didn't ask how sorry you were, nor what you had promised. What we want from you is work. Today is the nineteenth of April. Tomorrow will be the twentieth of April. See to it that the twentieth of April does not pass without your putting at least one load of honey into the hive. This is Warning Number 3! You may enter!"

And the policemen who had been blocking the door stepped aside to let her in.

The lazy bee woke up with very good intentions the next morning; but the sun was so warm and bright and the flowers were so beautiful! The day passed the same as all the others; except that toward evening the weather changed. The sun went down behind a great bank of clouds and a strong icy wind began to blow.

The lazy little bee started for home as fast as she could, thinking how warm and cozy it would be inside the hive, with all that storm blowing out of doors. But on the porch of the beehive the policemen got in front of her.

"Where are you going, young lady?" said they.

"I am going in to bed. This is where I live!"

"You must be mistaken," said the policemen. "Only busy worker bees live here! Lazy bees are not allowed inside this door!"

"Tomorrow, surely, surely, surely, I am going to work," said the little bee.

"There is no tomorrow for lazy bees," said the policemen; for they were old, wise bees, and knew philosophy. "Away with you!" And they pushed her off the doorstep.

The little bee did not know what to do. She flew around for a time; but soon it began to grow dark; the wind blew colder and colder, and drops of rain began to fall. Quite tired at last, she took hold of a leaf, intending to rest a moment; but she was chilled and numbed by the cold. She could not hang on, and fell a long distance to the ground.

She tried to get to her wings again, but they were too tired to work. So she started crawling over the ground toward the hive. Every stone, every stick she met, she had to climb over with great effort--so many hills and mountains they seemed to such a tiny bee. The raindrops were coming faster when, almost dead with cold and fright and fatigue, she arrived at the door of the hive.

"Oh, oh," she moaned. "I am cold, and it is going to rain! I shall be sure to die out here!" And she crept up to the door.

But the fierce policemen again stopped her from going in.

"Forgive me, sisters," the little bee said. "Please, let me go in!"

"Too late! Too late!" they answered.

"Please, sisters, I am so sleepy!" said the little bee.

"Too late! Too late!" said they.

"Please, sisters, I am cold!" said the little bee.

"Sorry! You can't go in!" said they.

"Please, sisters, for one last time! I shall die out here!"

"You won't die, lazy bee! One night will teach you the value of a warm bed earned by honest labor! Away from here!"

And they pushed her off the doorstep again.

By this time it was raining hard. The little bee felt her wings and fur getting wetter and wetter; and she was so cold and sleepy she did not know what to do. She crawled along as fast as she could over the ground, hoping to come to some place where it was dry and not so cold. At last she came to a tree and began to walk up the trunk. Suddenly, just as she had come to the crotch of two branches, she fell! She fell a long, long distance and landed finally on something soft. There was no wind and no rain blowing. On coming to her wits the little bee understood that she had fallen down through a hole inside a hollow tree.

And now the little bee had the fright of her life. Coiled up near her there was a snake, a green snake with a brick-colored back. That hollow tree was the snake's house; and the snake lay there looking at her with eyes that shone even in that darkness. Now, snakes eat bees, and like them. So when this little bee found herself so close to a fearful enemy of her kind, she just closed her eyes and murmured to herself:

"This is the last of me! Oh, how I wish I had worked!"

To her great surprise, however, the snake not only did not eat her, but spoke to her rather softly for such a terrible snake:

"How do you do, little bee? You must be a naughty little bee, to be out so late at night!"

"Yes," she murmured, her heart in her throat. "I have been a naughty bee. I did not work, and they won't let me in to go to my bed!"

"In that case, I shall not be so sorry to eat you!" answered the snake. "Surely there can be no harm at all in depriving the world of a useless little bee like you! I won't have to go out for dinner tonight. I shall eat you right here!"

The little bee was about as scared as a bee can be.

"That is not fair," she said. "It is not just! You have no right to eat me just because you are bigger than I am. Go and ask people if that isn't so! People know what is right and wrong!"

"Ah, ah!" said the snake, lifting his head higher, "so you have a good opinion of men? So you think that the men who steal your honey are more honest than snakes who eat you? You are not only a lazy bee. You are also a silly one!"

"It is not because men are dishonest that they take our honey," said the bee.

"Why is it then?" said the snake.

"It's because they are more intelligent than we are!" That is what the bee said; but the snake just laughed; and then he hissed:

"Well, if you must have it that way, it's because I'm more intelligent than you that I'm going to eat you now! Get ready to be eaten, lazy bee!"

And the snake drew back to strike, and lap up the bee at one gobble.

But the little bee had time to say:

"It's because you're duller than I am that you eat me!"

"Duller than you?" asked the snake, letting his head down again. "How is that, stupid?"

"However it is, it's so!"

"I'll have to be shown!" said the snake. "I will make a bargain with you. We will each do a trick; and the cleverest trick wins. If I win, I'll eat you!"

"And if I win?" asked the little bee.

"If you win," said the snake after some thought, "you may stay in here where it is warm all night. Is it a bargain?"

"It is," said the bee.

The snake considered another moment or so and then began to laugh. He had thought of something a bee could not possibly do. He darted out of a hole in the tree so quickly the bee had scarcely time to wonder what he was up to; and just as quickly he came back with a seed pod from the eucalyptus tree that stood near the beehive and shaded it on days when the sun was hot. Now the seed pods of the eucalyptus tree are just the shape of a top; in fact, the boys and girls in Argentina call them "tops"--_trompitos!_

"Now you just watch and see what I'm a-going to do," said the snake. "Watch now! Watch!..."

The snake wound the thin part of his tail around the top like a string; then, with a jump forward to his full length, he straightened his tail out. The "top" began to spin like mad on the bark floor there at the bottom of the hollow tree; and it spun and spun and spun, dancing, jumping, running off in this direction and then in that direction. And the snake laughed! And he laughed and he laughed and he laughed! No bee would ever be able to do a thing like that!

Finally the top got tired of spinning and fell over on its side.

"That is very clever!" said the bee, "I could never do that!"

"In that case, I shall have to eat you!" said the snake.

"Not just yet, please," said the bee. "I can't spin a top; but I can do something no one else can do!"

"What is that?" asked the snake.

"I can disappear!" said the bee.

"What do you mean, disappear?" said the snake, with some interest. "Disappear so that I can't see you and without going away from here?"

"Without going away from here!"

"Without hiding in the ground?"

"Without hiding in the ground!"

"I give up!" said the snake. "Disappear! But if you don't do as you say, I eat you, gobble, gobble, just like that!"

Now you must know that while the top was spinning round and round, the little bee had noticed something on the floor of the hollow tree she had not seen before: it was a little shrub, three or four inches high, with leaves about the size of a fifty-cent piece. She now walked over to the stem of this little shrub, taking care, however, not to touch it with her body. Then she said:

"Now it is my turn, Mr. Snake. Won't you be so kind as to turn around, and count 'one,' 'two,' 'three.' At the word 'three,' you can look for me everywhere! I simply won't be around!"

The snake looked the other way and ran off a "onetathree," then turning around with his mouth wide open to have his dinner at last. You see, he counted so fast just to give the bee as little time as possible, under the contract they had made.

But if he opened his mouth wide for his dinner, he held it open in complete surprise. There was no bee to be found anywhere! He looked on the floor. He looked on the sides of the hollow tree. He looked in each nook and cranny. He looked the little shrub all over. Nothing! The bee had simply disappeared!

Now, the snake understood that if his trick of spinning the top with his tail was extraordinary, this trick of the bee was almost miraculous. Where had that good-for-nothing lazybones gone to? Here? No! There? No! Where then? Nowhere! There was no way to find the little bee!

"Well," said the snake at last, "I give up! Where are you?"

A little voice seemed to come from a long way off, but still from the middle of the space inside the hollow tree.

"You won't eat me if I reappear?" it said.

"No, I won't eat you!" said the snake.

"Promise?"

"I promise! But where are you?"

"Here I am," said the bee, coming out on one of the leaves of the little shrub.

It was not such a great mystery after all. That shrub was a Sensitive-plant, a plant that is very common in South America, especially in the North of the Republic of Argentina, where Sensitive-plants grow to quite a good size. The peculiarity of the Sensitive-plant is that it shrivels up its leaves at the slightest contact. The leaves of this shrub were unusually large, as is true of the Sensitive-plants around the city of Misiones. You see, the moment the bee lighted on a leaf, it folded up tight about her, hiding her completely from view. Now, the snake had been living next to that plant all the season long, and had never noticed anything unusual about it. The little bee had paid attention to such things, however; and her knowledge this time had saved her life.

The snake was very much ashamed at being bested by such a little bee; and he was not very nice about it either. So much so, in fact, that the bee spent most of the night reminding him of the promise he had made not to eat her.

And it was a long, endless night for the little bee. She sat on the floor in one corner and the snake coiled up in the other corner opposite. Pretty soon it began to rain so hard that the water came pouring in through the hole at the top of the tree and made quite a puddle on the floor. The bee sat there and shivered and shivered; and every so often the snake would raise his head as though to swallow her at one gulp. "You promised! You promised! You promised!" And the snake would lower his head, sheepishlike, because he did not want the bee to think him a dishonest, as well as a stupid snake.

The little bee, who had been used to a warm hive at home and to warm sunlight out of doors, had never dreamed there could be so much cold anywhere as there was in that hollow tree. Nor had there ever been a night so long!

But the moment there was a trace of daylight at the hole in the top of the tree, the bee bade the snake good-by and crawled out. She tried her wings; and this time they worked all right. She flew in a bee-line straight for the door of the hive.

The policemen were standing there and she began to cry. But they simply stepped aside without saying a word, and let her in. They understood, you see, as wise old bees, that this wayward child was not the lazy bee they had driven away the evening before, but a sadder and wiser child who now knew something about the world she had to live in.

And they were right. Never before was there such a bee for working from morning till night, day in, day out, gathering pollen and honey from the flowers. When Autumn came she was the most respected bee in the hive and she was appointed teacher of the young bees who would do the work the following year. And her first lesson was something like this:

"It is not because bees are intelligent but because they work that makes them such wonderful little things. I used my intelligence only once--and that was to save my life. I should not have gotten into that trouble, however, if I had worked, like all the other bees. I used to waste my strength just flying around doing nothing. I should not have been any more tired if I had worked. What I needed was a sense of duty; and I got it that night I spent with the snake in the hollow tree.

"Work, my little bees, work!--remembering that what we are all working for, the happiness of everybody, will be hard enough to get if each of us does his full duty. This is what people say, and it is just as true of bees. Work well and faithfully and you will be happy. There is no sounder philosophy for a man or for a bee!"

THE GIANT TORTOISE'S GOLDEN RULE

Once there was a man who lived in Buenos Aires and was a friend of the superintendent of the Zoo. This man had a very happy life, because he worked hard and enjoyed good health. But one day he fell ill, and the doctors told him he would never get well unless he left town and went to live in the country where there was good air and a warm climate. The man could not think of such a thing, however. He had five little brothers, and both his parents were dead. He had to provide the little boys with food and clothes, and get them ready for school in the morning. Who would care for them, if he went away? So he kept on with his work and his illness grew worse and worse.

One day a man from the Zoo met him on the street and said:

"You ought to go and live an out-of-door life for a while. Now, I have an idea. We need a collection of new specimens for our museum, and you are a good shot with a gun. Wouldn't you like to go up into the Andes and hunt for us? I will pay for your outfit, and get a woman to look after your little brothers. It will not cost you very much, and there will be plenty of money left for the boys."

The sick man gladly accepted. He went off to the mountains, many, many miles beyond Misiones, where he camped in the open air and soon began to get better.

He lived quite by himself, doing his own cooking, washing his own clothes, and making his own bed, which was a bag with blankets in it. He did not use a tent, but slept in the bag out under the stars. When it rained he would throw up a shelter of branches, cover it with his waterproof, and sit down all cozy underneath, till the storm cleared. He ate partridges and venison, with the berries and wild fruits he found along the mountains. Whenever he saw some rare animal that the Zoo would want, he shot it, and dried its skin in the sun. In course of time, he made a big bundle of such skins, which he carried on his shoulder whenever he moved his camp to a new place. Many beautifully spotted snakes he was able to catch alive; and these he kept in a big hollow gourd--for in South America wild squashes and pumpkins grow till they are as large as gasoline cans.

All this was very hard work but the man grew strong and healthy again. And what an appetite he had when supper time came around! One day when his provisions were getting low, he went out hunting with his gun. Soon he came to a wide lake, and what should he see on the shore but a huge panther that had caught a tortoise! The fierce animal had drawn the turtle up out of the water and was clawing between the two shells trying to scratch the meat out. As the man approached, the panther turned and, with a great roar, leaped toward him. The panther was not quick enough, however, for a bullet from the man's rifle caught him between the eyes and laid him low in his tracks.

"What a wonderful rug this skin will make for somebody!" the man exclaimed; and he carefully removed the hide and rolled it up to take home.

"I think I will have turtle soup for supper tonight," the man continued as he turned toward the tortoise; for turtle-flesh is one of the richest and sweetest of all meats.

But he could not help feeling very sorry for the poor turtle when he saw what a plight she was in. The panther's claws had torn the flesh terribly; and a great gash in her throat had all but left her head severed from the rest of the body. Instead of killing the wounded turtle the hunter thought he would try to cure her of her hurts.