In the printed text, the small unframed illustrations appeared at theend of each chapter. For this e-text they have been moved to mid-chapterto separate them visually from the chapter-head illustrations.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER | PAGE | |
I. | First Flight | 1 |
II. | The House of the Rose | 14 |
III. | The Lake | 25 |
IV. | Effie and Bobbie | 43 |
V. | The Acrobat | 60 |
VI. | Puck | 72 |
VII. | In the Toils | 87 |
VIII. | The Bug and the Butterfly | 104 |
IX. | The Lost Leg | 113 |
X. | The Wonders of the Night | 133 |
XI. | With the Sprite | 153 |
XII. | Alois, Ladybird and Poet | 163 |
XIII. | The Fortress | 172 |
XIV. | The Sentinel | 182 |
XV. | The Warning | 194 |
XVI. | The Battle | 204 |
XVII. | The Queen’s Friend | 218 |
LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
“Won’t you come in?” | Frontispiece |
FACING PAGE | |
Maya lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the lake, and flewinland | 42 |
A human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris | 146 |
The Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and twoladies-in-waiting | 200 |
1
CHAPTER I
FIRST FLIGHT
Theelderly lady-bee who helped the baby-bee Maya when she awoke to life andslipped from her cell was called Cassandra and commanded great respectin the hive. Those were exciting days. Arebellion had broken outin the nation of bees, which the queen was unable to suppress.
While the experienced Cassandra wiped Maya’s large bright eyes andtried as best she could to arrange her delicate wings, the big hivehummed and buzzed like a threatening thunderstorm, and the baby-beefound it very warm and said so to her companion.
Cassandra looked about troubled, without2replying. It astonished her that the child so soon found something tocriticize. But really the child was right: the heat and the pushing andcrowding were almost unbearable. Maya saw an endless succession of beesgo by in such swarming haste that sometimes one climbed up and overanother, or several rolled past together clotted in a ball.
Once the queen-bee approached. Cassandra and Maya were jostled aside.Adrone, afriendly young fellow of immaculate appearance,came to their assistance. He nodded to Maya and stroked the shininghairs on his breast rather nervously with his foreleg. (The bees usetheir forelegs as arms and hands.)
“The crash will come,” he said to Cassandra. “The revolutionists willleave the city. Anew queen has already been proclaimed.”
Cassandra scarcely noticed him. She did not even thank him for hishelp, and Maya felt keenly conscious that the old lady was not a bitnice to the young gentleman. The child was a little afraid to askquestions, the impressions were coming so thick and fast; they3threatened to overwhelm her. The general excitement got into her blood,and she set up a fine, distinct buzzing.
“What do you mean by that?” said Cassandra. “Isn’t there noise enoughas itis?”
Maya subsided at once, and looked at Cassandra questioningly.
“Come here, child, we’ll see if we cannot quiet down a bit.”Cassandra took Maya by her gleaming wings, which were still soft and newand marvelously transparent, and shoved her into an almost desertedcorner beside a few honeycombs filled with honey.
Maya stood still and held on to one of the cells.
“It smells delicious here,” she observed.
Her remark seemed to fluster the old lady again.
“You must learn to wait, child,” she replied. “I have brought upseveral hundred young bees this spring and given them lessons for theirfirst flight, but I haven’t come across another one that was as pert andforward as you are. You seem to be an exceptional nature.”
4
Maya blushed and stuck the two dainty fingers of her hand in hermouth.
“Exceptional nature—what is an exceptional nature?” she askedshyly.
“Oh, that’s not nice,” cried Cassandra, referring not toMaya’s question, which she had scarcely heeded, but to the child’ssticking her fingers in her mouth. “Now, listen. Listen very carefullyto what I am going to tell you. Ican devote only a short time toyou. Other baby-bees have already slipped out, and the only helper Ihave on this floor is Turka, and Turka is dreadfully overworked and forthe last few days has been complaining of a buzzing in her ears. Sitdown here.”
Maya obeyed, with great brown eyes fastened on her teacher.
“The first rule that a young bee must learn,” said Cassandra, andsighed, “is that every bee, in whatever it thinks and does, must be likethe other bees and must always have the good of all in mind. In ourorder of society, which we have held to be the right one from timeimmemorial and which couldn’t have been better preserved than it hasbeen, this rule is5the one fundamental basis for the well-being of the state. To-morrow youwill fly out of the hive, an older bee will accompany you. At first youwill be allowed to fly only short stretches and you will have to observeeverything, very carefully, so that you can find your way back homeagain. Your companion will show you the hundred flowers and blossomsthat yield the best nectar. You’ll have to learn them by heart. This issomething no bee can escape doing.—Here, you may as well learn thefirst line right away—clover and honeysuckle. Repeat it. Say‘clover and honeysuckle.’”
“I can’t,” said little Maya. “It’s awfully hard. I’ll see the flowerslater anyway.”
Cassandra opened her old eyes wide and shook her head.
“You’ll come to a bad end,” she sighed. “I can foresee thatalready.”
“Am I supposed later on to gather nectar all day long?” askedMaya.
Cassandra fetched a deep sigh and gazed at the baby-bee seriously andsadly. She seemed to be thinking of her own toilsome6life—toil from beginning to end, nothing but toil. Then she spokein a changed voice, with a loving look in her eyes for the child.
“My dear little Maya, there will be other things in yourlife—the sunshine, lofty green trees, flowery heaths, lakes ofsilver, rushing, glistening waterways, the heavens blue and radiant, andperhaps even human beings, the highest and most perfect of Nature’screations. Because of all these glories your work will become a joy.Just think—all that lies ahead of you, dear heart. You have goodreason to be happy.”
“I’m so glad,” said Maya, “that’s what I want to be.”
Cassandra smiled kindly. In that instant—why, she did notknow—she conceived a peculiar affection for the little bee, suchas she could not recall ever having felt for any child-bee before. Andthat, probably, is how it came about that she told Maya more than a beeusually hears on the first day of its life. She gave her various specialbits of advice, warned her against the dangers of the wicked7world, and named the bees’ most dangerous enemies. At the end she spokelong of human beings, and implanted the first love for them in thechild’s heart and the germ of a great longing to know them.
“Be polite and agreeable to every insect you meet,” she said inconclusion, “then you will learn more from them than I have told youto-day. But beware of the wasps and hornets. The hornets are our mostformidable enemy, and the wickedest, and the wasps are a useless tribeof thieves, without home or religion. We are a stronger, more powerfulnation, while they steal and murder wherever they can. You may use yoursting upon insects, to defend yourself and inspire respect, but if youinsert it in a warm-blooded animal, especially a human being, you willdie, because it will remain sticking in the skin and will break off. Sodo not sting warm-blooded creatures except in dire need, and then do itwithout flinching or fear of death. For it is to our courage as well asour wisdom that we bees owe the universal respect and esteem in which weare held. And now good-by, Maya8dear. Good luck to you. Be faithful to your people and your queen.”
The little bee nodded yes, and returned her old monitor’s kiss andembrace. She went to bed in a flutter of secret joy and excitement andcould scarcely fall asleep from curiosity. For the next day she was toknow the great, wide world, the sun, the sky and the flowers.
Meanwhile the bee-city had quieted down. A large part of the youngerbees had now left the kingdom to found a new city; but for a long timethe droning of the great swarm could be heard outside in the sunlight.It was not from arrogance or evil intent against the queen that thesehad quitted; it was because the population had grown to such a size thatthere was no longer room for all the inhabitants, and it was impossibleto store a sufficient food-supply of honey to feed them all over thewinter. You see, according to a government treaty of long standing,alarge part of the honey gathered in summer had to be delivered upto human beings, who in return assured the welfare of the bee-state,provided9for the peace and safety of the bees, and gave them shelter against thecold in winter.
“The sun has risen!”
The joyous call sounding in Maya’s ears awoke her out of sleep thenext morning. She jumped up and joined a lady working-bee.
“Delighted,” said the lady cordially. “You may fly with me.”
At the gate, where there was a great pushing and crowding, they wereheld up by the sentinels, one of whom gave Maya the password withoutwhich no bee was admitted into the city.
“Be sure to remember it,” he said, “and good luck to you.”
Outside the city gates, a flood of sunlight assailed the little bee,abrilliance of green and gold, so rich and warm and resplendentthat she had to close her eyes, not knowing what to say or do from sheerdelight.
“Magnificent! It really is,” she said to her companion. “Do we flyinto that?”
“Right ahead!” answered the lady-bee.
Maya raised her little head and moved her pretty new wings. Suddenlyshe felt the10flying-board on which she had been sitting sink down, while the groundseemed to be gliding away behind, and the large green domes of thetree-tops seemed to be coming toward her.
Her eyes sparkled, her heart rejoiced.
“I am flying,” she cried. “It cannot be anything else. What I amdoing must be flying. Why, it’s splendid, perfectly splendid!”
“Yes, you’re flying,” said the lady-bee, who had difficulty inkeeping up with the child. “Those are linden-trees, those toward whichwe are flying, the lindens in our castle park. You can always tell whereour city is by those lindens. But you’re flying so fast, Maya.”
“Fast?” said Maya. “How can one fly fast enough? Oh, how sweet thesunshine smells!”
“No,” replied her companion, who was rather out of breath, “it’s notthe sunshine, it’s the flowers that smell.—But please, don’t go sofast, else I’ll drop behind. Besides, at this pace you won’t observethings and be able to find your way back.”
But little Maya transported by the sunshine and the joy of living,did not hear.11She felt as though she were darting like an arrow through agreen-shimmering sea of light, to greater and greater splendor. Thebright flowers seemed to call to her, the still, sunlit distances luredher on, and the blue sky blessed her joyous young flight.
“Never again will it be as beautiful as it is to-day,” she thought.“I can’t turn back. Ican’t think of anything except thesun.”
Beneath her the gay pictures kept changing, the peaceful landscapeslid by slowly, in broad stretches.
“The sun must be all of gold,” thought the baby-bee.
Coming to a large garden, which seemed to rest in blossoming cloudsof cherry-tree, hawthorn, and lilacs, she let herself down to earth,dead-tired, and dropped in a bed of red tulips, where she held on to oneof the big flowers. With a great sigh of bliss she pressed herselfagainst the blossom-wall and looked up to the deep blue of the skythrough the gleaming edges of the flowers.
“Oh, how beautiful it is out here in the great world, a thousandtimes more beautiful than12in the dark hive. I’ll never go back there again to carry honey or makewax. No, indeed, I’ll never do that. Iwant to see and know theworld in bloom. Iam not like the other bees, my heart is meant forpleasure and surprises, experiences and adventures. Iwill not beafraid of any dangers. Haven’t I got strength and courage and asting?”
She laughed, bubbling over with delight, and took a deep draught ofnectar out of the flower of the tulip.
“Grand,” she thought. “It’s glorious to be alive.”
Ah, if little Maya had had an inkling of the many dangers andhardships that lay ahead of her, she would certainly have thought twice.But never dreaming of such things, she stuck to her resolve.
Soon tiredness overcame her, and she fell asleep. When she awoke, thesun was gone, twilight lay upon the land. Abit of alarm, afterall. Maya’s heart went a little faster. Hesitatingly she crept out ofthe flower, which was about to close up for the night, and hid herselfaway under a leaf high up in the top13of an old tree, where she went to sleep, thinking in the utmostconfidence:
“I’m not afraid. I won’t be afraid right at the very start. The sunis coming round again; that’s certain; Cassandra said so. The thing todo is to go to sleep quietly and sleep well.”
14
CHAPTER II
THE HOUSE OF THE ROSE
Bythe time Maya awoke, it was full daylight. She felt a little chillyunder her big green leaf, and stiff in her limbs, so that her firstmovements were slow and clumsy. Clinging to a vein of the leaf she lether wings quiver and vibrate, to limber them up and shake off the dust;then she smoothed her fair hair, wiped her large eyes clean, and crept,warily, down to the edge of the leaf, where she paused and lookedaround.
The glory and the glow of the morning sun were dazzling. ThoughMaya’s resting-place still lay in cool shadow, the leaves overhead shonelike green gold.
15
“Oh, you glorious world,” thought the little bee.
Slowly, one by one, the experiences of the previous day came back toher—all the beauties she had seen and all the risks she had run.She remained firm in her resolve not to return to the hive. To be sure,when she thought of Cassandra, her heart beat fast, though it was notvery likely that Cassandra would ever find her.—No, no, to herthere was no joy in forever having to fly in and out of the hive,carrying honey and making wax. This was clear, once and for all. Shewanted to be happy and free and enjoy life in her own way. Come whatmight, she would take the consequences.
Thus lightly thought Maya, the truth being that she had no real ideaof the things that lay in store for her.
Afar off in the sunshine something glimmered red. A lurkingimpatience seized the little bee. Moreover, she felt hungry. So,courageously, with a loud joyous buzz, she swung out of her hiding-placeinto the clear, glistening air and the warm sunlight, and16made straight for the red patch that seemed to nod and beckon. When shedrew near she smelled a perfume so sweet that it almost robbed her ofher senses, and she was hardly able to reach the large red flower. Shelet herself down on the outermost of its curved petals and clung to ittightly. At the gentle tipping of the petal a shining silver spherealmost as big as herself, came rolling toward her, transparent andgleaming in all the colors of the rainbow. Maya was dreadfullyfrightened, yet fascinated too by the splendor of the cool silversphere, which rolled by her, balanced on the edge of the petal, leaptinto the sunshine, and fell down in the grass. Oh, oh! The beautifulball had shivered into a score of wee pearls. Maya uttered a little cryof terror. But the tiny round fragments made such a bright, livelyglitter in the grass, and ran down the blades in such twinkling,sparkling little drops like diamonds in the lamplight, that she wasreassured.
She turned towards the inside of the calix. A beetle, a littlesmaller than herself, with brown wing-sheaths and a black breastplate,was sitting17at the entrance. He kept his place unperturbed, and looked at herseriously, though by no means unamiably. Maya bowed politely.
“Did the ball belong to you?” she asked, and receiving no replyadded: “I am very sorry I threw it down.”
“Do you mean the dewdrop?” smiled the beetle, rather superior. “Youneedn’t worry about that. Ihad taken a drink already and my wifenever drinks water, she has kidney trouble.—What are you doinghere?”
“What is this wonderful flower?” asked Maya, not answering thebeetle’s question. “Would you be good enough to tell me its name?”
Remembering Cassandra’s advice she was as polite as possible.
The beetle moved his shiny head in his dorsal plate, a thing he coulddo easily without the least discomfort, as his head fitted in perfectlyand glided back and forth without a click.
“You seem to be only of yesterday?” he said, and laughed—not sovery politely. Altogether there was something about him18that struck Maya as unrefined. The bees had more culture and bettermanners. Yet he seemed to be a good-natured fellow, because, seeingMaya’s blush of embarrassment, he softened to her childishignorance.
“It’s a rose,” he explained indulgently. “So now you know.—Wemoved in four days ago, and since we moved in, it has flourishedwonderfully under our care.—Won’t you comein?”
Maya hesitated, then conquered her misgivings and took a few stepsforward. He pressed aside a bright petal, Maya entered, and she and thebeetle walked beside each other through the narrow chambers with theirsubdued light and fragrant walls.
“What a charming home!” exclaimed Maya, genuinely taken with theplace. “The perfume is positively intoxicating.”
Maya’s admiration pleased the beetle.
“It takes wisdom to know where to live,” he said, and smiledgood-naturedly. “‘Tell me where you live and I’ll tell you what you’reworth,’ says an old adage.—Would you like some nectar?”
19
“Oh,” Maya burst out, “I’d love some.”
The beetle nodded and disappeared behind one of the walls. Mayalooked about. She was happy. She pressed her cheeks and little handsagainst the dainty red hangings and took deep breaths of the deliciousperfume, in an ecstasy of delight at being permitted to stop in such abeautiful dwelling.
“It certainly is a great joy to be alive,” she thought. “And there’sno comparison between the dingy, crowded stories in which the bees liveand work and this house. The very quiet here is splendid.”
Suddenly there was a loud sound of scolding behind the walls. It wasthe beetle growling excitedly in great anger. He seemed to be hustlingand pushing someone along roughly, and Maya caught the following, in aclear, piping voice full of fright and mortification.
“Of course, because I’m alone, you dare to lay hands on me. But waitand see what you get when I bring my associates along. You are aruffian. Very well, Iam going. But remember, Icalled you aruffian. You’ll never forget that.”
20
The stranger’s emphatic tone, so sharp and vicious, frightened Mayadreadfully. In a few moments she heard the sound of someone runningout.
The beetle returned and sullenly flung down some nectar.
“An outrage,” he said. “You can’t escape those vermin anywhere. Theydon’t allow you a moment’s peace.”
Maya was so hungry she forgot to thank him and took a mouthful ofnectar and chewed, while the beetle wiped the perspiration from hisforehead and slightly loosened his upper armor so as to catch hisbreath.
“Who was that?” mumbled Maya, with her mouth still full.
“Please empty your mouth—finish chewing and swallowing yournectar. One can’t understand a word you say.”
Maya obeyed, but the excited owner of the house gave her no time torepeat her question.
“It was an ant,” he burst out angrily. “Do those ants think we saveand store up hour after hour only for them! The idea of going right intothe pantry without a how-do-you-do21or a by-your-leave! It makes me furious. If I didn’t realize that theill-mannered creatures actually didn’t know better, Iwouldn’thesitate a second to call them—thieves!”
At this he suddenly remembered his own manners.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, turning to Maya, “I forgot to introducemyself. My name is Peter, of the family of rose-beetles.”
“My name is Maya,” said the little bee shyly. “I am delighted to makeyour acquaintance.” She looked at Peter closely; he was bowingrepeatedly, and spreading his feelers like two little brown fans. Thatpleased Maya immensely.
“You have the most fascinating feelers,” she said, “simplysweet....”
“Well, yes,” observed Peter, flattered, “people do think a lot ofthem. Would you like to see the other side?”
“If I may.”
The rose-beetle turned his fan-shaped feelers to one side and let aray of sunlight glide over them.
“Great, don’t you think?” he asked.
22
“I shouldn’t have thought anything like them possible,” rejoinedMaya. “My own feelers are very plain.”
“Well, yes,” observed Peter, “to each his own. By way of compensationyou certainly have beautiful eyes, and the color of your body, the goldof your body, is not to be sneezedat.”
Maya beamed. Peter was the first person to tell her she had any goodlooks. Life was great. She was happy as a lark, and helped herself tosome more nectar.
“An excellent quality of honey,” she remarked.
“Take some more,” said Peter, rather amazed by his little guest’sappetite. “Rose-juice of the first vintage. One has to be careful andnot spoil one’s stomach. There’s some dew left, too, if you’rethirsty.”
“Thank you so much,” said Maya. “I’d like to fly now, if you willpermitme.”
The rose-beetle laughed.
“Flying, always flying,” he said. “It’s in the blood of you bees.Idon’t understand such a restless way of living. There’s some23advantage in staying in one place, too, don’t you think?”
Peter courteously held the red curtain aside.
“I’ll go as far as our observation petal with you,” he said. “Itmakes an excellent place to fly from.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Maya, “I can fly from anywhere.”
“That’s where you have the advantage over me,” replied Peter. “I havesome difficulty in unfolding my lower wings.” He shook her hand and heldthe last curtain aside for her.
“Oh, the blue sky!” rejoiced Maya. “Good-by.”
“So long,” called Peter, remaining on the top petal to see Maya riserapidly straight up to the sky in the golden sunlight and the clear,pure air of the morning. With a sigh he returned, pensive, to his coolrose-dwelling, for though it was still early he was feeling rather warm.He sang his morning song to himself, and it hummed in the red sheen ofthe petals and the radiance of the spring day that slowly mounted andspread over the blossoming earth.
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Gold and green are field and tree,
Warm in summer’s glow;
All is bright and fair to see
While the roses blow.
What or why the world may be
Who can guess or know?
All my world is glad and free
While the roses blow.
Brief, they say, my time of glee;
With the roses I go;
Yes, but life is good to me
While the roses blow.
25
CHAPTER III
THE LAKE
“Dearme,” thought Maya, after she had flown off, “oh, dear me, I forgot toask Mr. Peter about human beings. Agentleman of his wideexperience could certainly have told me about them. But perhaps I’llmeet one myself to-day.” Full of high spirits and in a happy mood ofadventure, she let her bright eyes rove over the wide landscape that layspread out below in all its summer splendor.
She came to a large garden gleaming with a thousand colors. On herway she met many insects, who sang out greetings, and wished her apleasant journey and a good harvest.—But26every time she met a bee, her heart went pit-a-pat. After all she felt alittle guilty to be idle, and was afraid of coming upon acquaintances.Soon, however, she saw that the bees paid not the slightest attention toher.
Then all of a sudden the world seemed to turn upside down. Theheavens shone below her, in endless depths. At first she wasdreadfully frightened; she thought she had flown too far up and lost herway in the sky. But presently she noticed that the trees were mirroredon the edge of the terrestrial sky, and to her entrancement she realizedthat she was looking at a great serene basin of water which lay blue andclear in the peaceful morning. She let herself down close to thesurface. There was her image flying in reflection, the lovely gold ofher body shining at her from the water, her bright wings glittering likeclear glass. And she observed that she held her little legs properlyagainst her body, as Cassandra had taught her todo.
“It’s bliss to be flying over the surface of water like this. It is,really,” she thought.
Big fish and little fish swam about in the27clear element, or seemed to float idly. Maya took good care not to gotoo close; she knew there was danger to bees from the race offishes.
On the opposite shore she was attracted by the water-lilies and therushes, the water-lilies with their large round leaves lying outspreadon the water like green plates, and the rushes with their sun-warmed,reedy stalks.
She picked out a leaf well-concealed under the tall blades of therushes. It lay in almost total shade, except for two round spots likegold coins; the rushes swayed above in the full sunlight.
“Glorious,” said the little bee, “perfectly glorious.”
She began to tidy herself. Putting both arms up behind her head shepulled it forward as if to tear it off, but was careful not to pull toohard, just enough to scrape away the dust; then, with her little hindlegs, she stroked and dragged down her wing-sheaths, which sprang backin position looking beautifully bright and glossy.
Just as she had completed her toilet a small28steely blue-bottle came and alighted on the leaf beside her. He lookedat her in surprise.
“What are you doing here on my leaf?” he demanded.
Maya was startled.
“Is there any objection to a person’s just resting here a moment ortwo?”
Maya remembered Cassandra’s telling her that the nation of beescommanded great respect in the insect world. Now she was going to see ifit was true; she was going to see if she, Maya, could compel respect.Nevertheless her heart beat a little faster because her tone had beenvery loud and peremptory.
But actually the blue-bottle was frightened. He showed it plainly.When he saw that Maya wasn’t going to let anyone lay down the law to herhe backed down. With a surly buzz he swung himself on to a blade thatcurved above Maya’s leaf, and said in a much politer tone, talking downto her out of the sunshine:
“You ought to be working. As a bee you certainly ought. But if youwant to rest, all right. I’ll wait here.”
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“There are plenty of leaves,” observed Maya.
“All rented,” said the blue-bottle. “Now-a-days one is happy to beable to call a piece of ground one’s own. If my predecessor hadn’t beensnapped up by a frog two days ago, Ishould still be without aproper place to live in. It’s not very pleasant to have to hunt up adifferent lodging every night. Not everyone has such a well-orderedstate as you bees. But permit me to introduce myself. My name is JackChristopher.”
Maya was silent with terror, thinking how awful it must be to fallinto the clutches of a frog.
“Are there many frogs in the lake?” she asked and drew to the verymiddle of the leaf so as not to be seen from the water.
The blue-bottle laughed.
“You are giving yourself unnecessary trouble,” he jeered. “The frogcan see you from below when the sun shines, because then the leaf istransparent. He sees you sitting on my leaf, perfectly.”
Beset by the awful idea that maybe a big30frog was squatting right under her leaf staring at her with his bulginghungry eyes, Maya was about to fly off when something dreadful happened,something for which she was totally unprepared. In the confusion of thefirst moment she could not make out just exactly what washappening. She only heard a loud rustling like the wind in dry leaves,then a singing whistle, aloud angry hunter’s cry. And a fine,transparent shadow glided over her leaf. Now she saw—saw fully,and her heart stood still in terror. Agreat, glittering dragon-flyhad caught hold of poor Jack Christopher and held him tight in itslarge, fangs, sharp as a knife. The blade of the rush bent low beneaththeir weight. Maya could see them hovering above her and also mirroredin the clear water below. Jack’s screams tore her heart. Withoutthinking, she cried:
“Let the blue-bottle go, at once, whoever you are. You have no rightto interfere with people’s habits. You have no right to be soarbitrary.”
The dragon-fly released Jack from its fangs,31but still held him fast with its arms, and turned its head toward Maya.She was fearfully frightened by its large, grave eyes and viciouspincers, but the glittering of its body and wings fascinated her. Theyflashed like glass and water and precious stones. The horrifying thingwas its huge size. How could she have been so bold? She was alla-tremble.
“Why, what’s the matter, child?” The dragon-fly’s tone, surprisingly,was quite friendly.
“Let him go,” cried Maya, and tears came into her eyes. “His name isJack Christopher.”
The dragon-fly smiled.
“Why, little one?” it said, putting on an interested air, though mostcondescending.
Maya stammered helplessly:
“Oh, he’s such a nice, elegant gentleman, and he’s never done you anyharm so far as I know.”
The dragon-fly regarded Jack Christopher contemplatively.
“Yes, he is a dear little fellow,” it replied tenderlyand—bit Jack’s head off.
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Maya thought she was losing her senses. For a long time she couldn’tutter a sound. In horror she listened to the munching and crunchingabove her as the body of Jack Christopher the blue-bottle was beingdismembered.
“Don’t put on so,” said the dragon-fly with its mouth full, chewing.“Your sensitiveness doesn’t impress me. Are you bees any better? What doyou do? Evidently you are very young still and haven’t looked about inyour own house. When the massacre of the drones takes place in thesummer, the rest of the world is no less shocked and horrified, andI think with greater justification.”
Maya asked:
“Have you finished up there?” She did not dare to raise her eyes.
“One leg still left,” replied the dragon-fly.
“Do please swallow it. Then I’ll answer you,” cried Maya, who knewthat the drones in the hive had to be killed off in the summer,and was provoked by the dragon-fly’s stupidity. “But don’t you dare tocome a step closer. If you do I’ll use my sting on you.”
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Little Maya had really lost her temper. It was the first time she hadmentioned her sting and the first time she felt glad that she possessedthe weapon.
The dragon-fly threw her a wicked glance. It had finished its mealand sat with its head slightly ducked, fixing Maya with its eyes andlooking like a beast of prey about to pounce. The little bee was quitecalm now. Where she got her courage from she couldn’t have told, but shewas no longer afraid. She set up a very fine clear buzzing as she hadonce heard a sentinel do when a wasp came near the entrance of thehive.
The dragon-fly said slowly and threateningly:
“Dragon-flies live on the best terms with the nation of bees.”
“Very sensible in them,” flashed Maya.
“Do you mean to insinuate that I am afraid of you—I of you?”With a jerk the dragon-fly let go of the rush, which sprang back intoits former position, and flew off with a whirr and sparkle of its wings,straight down to the surface of the water, where it made a superb34appearance reflected in the mirror of the lake. You’d have thought therewere two dragon-flies. Both moved their crystal wings so swiftly andfinely that it seemed as though a brilliant sheen of silver werestreaming around them.
Maya quite forgot her grief over poor Jack Christopher and all senseof her own danger.
“How lovely! How lovely!” she cried enthusiastically, clapping herhands.
“Do you mean me?” The dragon-fly spoke in astonishment, but quicklyadded: “Yes, Imust admit I am fairly presentable. Yesterday I wasflying along the brook, and you should have heard some human beings whowere lying on the bank rave overme.”
“Human beings!” exclaimed Maya. “Oh my, did you see humanbeings?”
“Of course,” answered the dragon-fly. “But you’ll be very interestedto know my name, I’m sure. My name is Loveydear, of the order Odonata,of the family Libellulidæ.”
“Oh, do tell me about human beings,” implored Maya, after she hadintroduced herself.
The dragon-fly seemed won over. She35seated herself on the leaf beside Maya. And the little bee let her,knowing Miss Loveydear would be careful not to come too close.
“Have human beings a sting?” she asked.
“Good gracious, what would they do with a sting! No, they have worseweapons against us, and they are very dangerous. There isn’t a soul whoisn’t afraid of them, especially of the little ones whose two legsshow—the boys.”
“Do they try to catch you?” asked Maya, breathless withexcitement.
“Yes, can’t you understand why?” Miss Loveydear glanced at her wings.“I have seldom met a human being who hasn’t tried to catchme.”
“But why?” asked Maya in a tremor.
“You see,” said Miss Loveydear, with a modest smirk and a drooping,sidewise glance, “there’s something attractive about us dragon-flies.That’s the only reason I know. Some members of our family who letthemselves be caught went through the cruellest tortures and finallydied.”
“Were they eaten up?”
36
“No, no, not exactly that,” said Miss Loveydear comfortingly. “So faras is known, man does not feed on dragon-flies. But sometimes he hasmurderous desires, alust for killing, which will probably never beexplained. You may not believe it, but cases have actually occurred ofthe so-called boy-men catching dragon-flies and pulling off their legsand wings for pure pleasure. You doubt it, don’t you?”
“Of course I doubt it,” cried Maya indignantly.
Miss Loveydear shrugged her glistening shoulders. Her face looked oldwith knowledge.
“Oh,” she said after a pause, grieving and pale, “if only one couldspeak of these things openly. Ihad a brother who gave promise of asplendid future, only, I’m sorry to say, he was a little reckless anddreadfully curious. Aboy once threw a net over him, anetfastened to a long pole.—Who would dream of a thing like that?Tell me. Would you?”
“No,” said the little bee, “never. I should never have thought ofsuch a thing.”
37
The dragon-fly looked at her.
“A black cord was tied round his waist between his wings, so that hecould fly, but not fly away, not escape. Each time my brother thought hehad got his liberty, he would be jerked back horribly within the boy’sreach.”
Maya shook her head.
“You don’t dare even think of it,” she whispered.
“If a day passes when I don’t think of it,” said the dragon-fly, “Iam sure to dream of it. One misfortune followed another. My brother soondied.” Miss Loveydear heaved a deep sigh.
“What did he die of?” asked Maya, in genuine sympathy.
Miss Loveydear could not reply at once. Great tears welled up androlled down her cheeks.
“He was stuck in a pocket,” she sobbed. “No one can stand being stuckin a pocket.”
“But what is a pocket?” Maya could hardly take in so many new andawful things all at once.
“A pocket,” Miss Loveydear explained, “is38a store-room that men have in their outer hide.—And what else doyou think was in the pocket when my brother was stuck into it? Oh, thedreadful company in which my poor brother had to draw his last breath!You’ll never guess!”
“No,” said Maya, all in a quiver, “no, I don’t think Ican.—Honey, perhaps?”
“Not likely,” observed Miss Loveydear with an air of mingledimportance and distress. “You’ll seldom find honey in the pockets ofhuman beings. I’ll tell you.—A frog was in the pocket, and apen-knife, and a carrot. Well?”
“Horrible,” whispered Maya.—“What is a pen-knife?”
“A pen-knife, in a way, is a human being’s sting, an artificial one.They are denied a sting by nature, so they try to imitate it.—Thefrog, thank goodness, was nearing his end. One eye was gone, one leg wasbroken, and his lower jaw was dislocated. Yet, for all that, the momentmy brother was stuck in the pocket he hissed at him out of his crookedmouth:
39
“‘As soon as I am well, I will swallow you.’
“With his remaining eye he glared at my brother, and in thehalf-light of the prison you can imagine what an effect the look he gavehim must have had—fearful!—Then something even more horriblehappened. The pocket was suddenly shaken, my brother was pressed againstthe dying frog and his wings stuck to its cold, wet body. He went off ina faint.—Oh, the misery of it! There are no words todescribeit.”
“How did you find all this out?” Maya was so horrified she couldscarcely frame the question.
“I’ll tell you,” replied Miss Loveydear. “After a while the boy gothungry and dug into his pocket for the carrot. It was under my brotherand the frog, and the boy threw them away first.—I heard mybrother’s cry for help, and found him lying beside the frog on thegrass. Ireached him only in time to hear the whole story before hebreathed his last. He put his arms round my neck and kissed me farewell.Then he died—bravely40and without complaining, like a little hero. When his crushed wings hadgiven their last quiver, Ilaid an oak leaf over his body and wentto look for a sprig of forget-me-nots to put upon his grave. ‘Sleepwell, my little brother,’ Icried, and flew off in the quiet of theevening. Iflew toward the two red suns, the one in the sky and theone in the lake. No one has ever felt as sad and solemn as I didthen.—Have you ever had a sorrow in your life? Perhaps you’ll tellme about it some other time.”
“No,” said Maya. “As a matter of fact, until now I have always beenhappy.”
“You may thank your lucky stars,” said Miss Loveydear with a note ofdisappointment in her voice.
Maya asked about the frog.
“Oh, him,” said Miss Loveydear. “He, it is presumed, met withthe end he deserved. The hard-heartedness of him, to frighten a dyingperson! When I found him on the grass beside my brother, he was tryingto get away. But on account of his broken leg and one eye gone, all hecould do was hop round41in a circle and hop round in a circle. He looked too comical for words.‘The stork’ll soon get ye,’ Icalled to him as I flew away.”
“Poor frog!” said little Maya.
“Poor frog! Poor frog indeed! That’s going too far. Pitying a frog.The idea! To feel sorry for a frog is like clipping your own wings. Youseem to have no principles.”
“Perhaps. But it’s hard for me to see any one suffer.”
“Oh”—Miss Loveydear comforted her—“that’s because you’reso young. You’ll learn to bear it in time. Cheerio, my dear.—But Imust be getting into the sunshine. It’s pretty cold here. Good-by!”
A faint rustle and the gleam of a thousand colors, lovely pale colorslike the glints in running water and clear gems.
Miss Loveydear swung through the green rushes out over the surface ofthe water. Maya heard her singing in the sunshine. She stood andlistened. It was a fine song, with something of the melancholy sweetnessof a folksong, and it filled the little bee’s heart with mingledhappiness and sadness.
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Softly flows the lovely stream
Touched by morning’s rosy gleam
Through the alders darted,
Where the rushes bend and sway,
Where the water-lilies say
“We are golden-hearted!”
Warm the scent the west-wind brings,
Bright the sun upon my wings,
Joy among the flowers!
Though my life may not be long,
Golden summer, take my song!
Thanks for perfect hours!
“Listen!” a white butterfly called to its friend. “Listen to the songof the dragon-fly.” The light creatures rocked close to Maya, and rockedaway again into the radiant blue day. Then Maya also lifted her wings,buzzed farewell to the silvery lake, and flew inland.
Maya lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the lake, and flew inland
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CHAPTER IV
EFFIE AND BOBBIE
WhenMaya awoke the next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell,she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bedquiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. Through the open corollacame a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. Insome apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens,scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps,ventured to the outer edge of the drooping blossom. It was raining!Afine cool rain was coming down with a light plash, coveringeverything all round with millions of44bright silver pearls, which clung to the leaves and flowers, rolled downthe green paths of the blades of grass, and refreshed the brownsoil.
What a change in the world! It was the first time in the child-bee’syoung life that she had seen rain. It filled her with wonder; itdelighted her. Yet she was a little troubled. She remembered Cassandra’swarning never to fly abroad in the rain. It must be difficult, sherealized, to move your wings when the drops beat them down. And the coldreally hurt, and she missed the quiet golden sunshine that gladdened theearth and made it a place free from all care.
It seemed to be very early still. The animal life in the grass wasjust beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Mayacommanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath.Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mountinghomesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in ahiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings of the grass-dwellersbelow.
Slowly, however, her thoughts went back—back45to the home she had left, to the bee-state, and to the protection of itsclose solidarity. There, on this rainy day, the bees would be sittingtogether, glad of the day of rest, doing a little construction here andthere on the cells, or feeding the larvæ. Yet, on the whole, the hivewas very quiet and Sunday-like when it rained. Only, sometimesmessengers would fly out to see how the weather was and from whatquarter the wind was blowing. The queen would go about her kingdom fromstory to story, testing things, bestowing a word of praise or blame,laying an egg here and there, and bringing happiness with her royalpresence wherever she went. She might pat one of the younger bees on thehead to show her approval of what it had already done, or she might askit about its new experiences. How delighted a bee would be to catch aglance or receive a gracious word from the queen!
Oh, thought Maya, how happy it made you to be able to count yourselfone in a community like that, to feel that everybody respected you, andyou had the powerful protection46of the state. Here, out in the world, lonely and exposed, she ran greatrisks of her life. She was cold, too. And supposing the rain were tokeep up! What would she do, how could she find something to eat? Therewas scarcely any honey-juice in the canterbury bell, and the pollenwould soon give out.
For the first time Maya realized how necessary the sunshine is for alife of vagabondage. Hardly anyone would set out on adventure, shethought, if it weren’t for the sunshine. The very recollection of it wascheering, and she glowed with secret pride that she had had the daringto start life on her own hook. The number of things she had already seenand experienced! More, ever so much more, than the other bees werelikely to know in a whole lifetime. Experience was the most preciousthing in life, worth any sacrifice, she thought.
A troop of migrating ants were passing by, and singing as theymarched through the cool forest of grass. They seemed to be in a hurry.Their crisp morning song, in rhythm with their march, touched the littlebee’s heart with melancholy.
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Few our days on earth shall be,
Fast the moments flit;
First-class robbers such as we
Do not care a bit!
They were extraordinarily well armed and looked saucy, bold anddangerous.
The song died away under the leaves of the coltsfoot. But somemischief seemed to have been done there. Arough, hoarse voicesounded, and the small leaves of a young dandelion were energeticallythrust aside. Maya saw a corpulent blue beetle push its way out. Itlooked like a half-sphere of dark metal, shimmering with lights of blueand green and occasional black. It may have been two or even three timesher size. Its hard sheath looked as though nothing could destroy it, andits deep voice positively frightened you.
The song of the soldiers, apparently, had roused him out of sleep. Hewas cross. His hair was still rumpled, and he rubbed the sleep out ofhis cunning little blue eyes.
“Make way, I’m coming. Make way.”
He seemed to think that people should step48aside at the mere announcement of his approach.
“Thank the Lord I’m not in his way,” thought Maya, feeling very safein her high, swaying nook of concealment. Nevertheless her heart wentpit-a-pat, and she withdrew a little deeper into the flower-bell.
The beetle moved with a clumsy lurch through the wet grass,presenting a not exactly elegant appearance. Directly under Maya’sblossom was a withered leaf. Here he stopped, shoved the leaf aside, andmade a step backward. Maya saw a hole in the ground.
“Well,” she thought, all a-gog with curiosity, “the things thereare in the world. Inever thought of such a thing. Life’snot long enough for all there is to see.”
She kept very quiet. The only sound was the soft pelting of the rain.Then she heard the beetle calling down the hole:
“If you want to go hunting with me, you’ll have to make up your mindto get right up. It’s already bright daylight.” He was feeling so verysuperior for having waked up first49that it was hard for him to be pleasant.
A few moments passed before the answer came. Then Maya heard a thin,chirping voice rise out of the hole.
“For goodness’ sake, do close the door up there. It’srainingin.”
The beetle obeyed. He stood in an expectant attitude, his head cockeda little to one side, and squinted through the crack.
“Please hurry,” he grumbled.
Maya was tense with eagerness to see what sort of a creature wouldcome out of the hole. She crept so far out on the edge of the blossomthat a drop of rain fell on her shoulder, and gave her a start. Shewiped herself dry.
Below her the withered leaf heaved; a brown insect crept out, slowly.Maya thought it was the queerest specimen she had ever seen. It had aplump body, set on extremely thin, slow-moving legs, and a fearfullythick head, with little upright feelers. It looked flustered.
“Good morning, Effie dear.” The beetle went slim with politeness. Hewas all politeness, and his body seemed really slim. “How50did you sleep? How did you sleep, my precious—my all?”
Effie took his hand rather stonily.
“It can’t be, Bobbie,” she said. “I can’t go with you. We’re creatingtoo much talk.”
Poor Bobbie looked quite alarmed.
“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “I don’t understand.—Is ournew-found happiness to be wrecked by such nonsense? Effie,think—think the thing over. What do you care whatpeople say? You have your hole, you can creep into it whenever you like,and if you go down far enough, you won’t hear a syllable.”
Effie smiled a sad, superior smile.
“Bobbie, you don’t understand. I have my own views in thematter.—Besides, there’s something else. You have been exceedinglyindelicate. You took advantage of my ignorance. You let me think youwere a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug.Aconsiderable difference! He saw you engaged in—well, doingsomething I don’t care to mention. I’m sure you will now admit that Imust take back my word.”
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Bobbie was stunned. When he recovered from the shock he burst outangrily:
“No, I don’t understand. I can’t understand. I want to beloved for myself, and not for my business.”
“If only it weren’t dung,” said Effie offishly, “anything but dung,Ishouldn’t be so particular.—And please remember, I’m ayoung widow who lost her husband only three days ago under the mosttragic circumstances—he was gobbled up by the shrewmouse—andit isn’t proper for me to be gadding about. Ayoung widow shouldlead a life of complete retirement. So—good-by.”
Pop into her hole went Effie, as though a puff of wind had blown heraway. Maya would never have thought it possible that anyone could diveinto the ground as fast as that.
Effie was gone, and Bobbie stared in blank bewilderment down theempty dark opening, looking so utterly stupid that Maya had tolaugh.
Finally he roused, and shook his small round head in angry distress.His feelers52drooped dismally like two rain-soaked fans.
“People now-a-days no longer appreciate fineness of character andrespectability,” he sighed. “Effie is heartless. Ididn’t dareadmit it to myself, but she is, she’s absolutely heartless. But even ifshe hasn’t got the right feelings, she ought to have the goodsense to be my wife.”
Maya saw the tears come to his eyes, and her heart was seized withpity.
But the next instant Bobbie stirred. He wiped the tears away andcrept cautiously behind a small mound of earth, which his friend hadprobably shoveled out of her dwelling. Alittle flesh-coloredearthworm was coming along through the grass. It had the queerest way ofpropelling itself, by first making itself long and thin, then short andthick. Its cylinder of a body consisted of nothing but delicate ringsthat pushed and groped forward noiselessly.
Suddenly, startling Maya, Bobbie made one step out of hishiding-place, caught hold of the worm, bit it in two, and began calmlyto eat the one half, heedless of its desperate wriggling53or the wriggling of the other half in the grass. It was a tiny littleworm.
“Patience,” said Bobbie, “it will soon be over.”
But while he chewed, his thoughts seemed to revert to Effie, hisEffie, whom he had lost forever and aye, and great tears rolled down hischeeks.
Maya pitied him from the bottom of her heart.
“Dear me,” she thought, “there certainly is a lot of sadness in theworld.”
At that moment she saw the half of the worm which Bobbie had setaside, making a hasty departure.
“Did you ever see the like!” she cried, surprised into such aloud tone that Bobbie looked around wondering where the sound had comefrom.
“Make way!” he called.
“But I’m not in your way,” said Maya.
“Where are you then? You must be somewhere.”
“Up here. Up above you. In the bluebell.”
“I believe you, but I’m no grasshopper. I54can’t turn my head up far enough to see you. Why did you scream?”
“The half of the worm is running away.”
“Yes,” said Bobbie, looking after the retreating fraction, “thecreatures are very lively.—I’ve lost my appetite.” With that hethrew away the remnant which he was still holding in his hand, and thisworm portion also retreated, in the other direction.
Maya was completely puzzled. But Bobbie seemed to be familiar withthis peculiarity of worms.
“Don’t suppose that I always eat worms,” he remarked. “You see, youdon’t find roses everywhere.”
“Tell the little one at least which way its other half ran,” criedMaya in great excitement.
Bobbie shook his head gravely.
“Those whom fate has rent asunder, let no man join together again,”he observed.—“Who are you?”
“Maya, of the nation of bees.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I have nothing against the bees.—Why areyou sitting about?55Bees don’t usually sit about. Have you been sitting there long?”
“I slept here.”
“Indeed!” There was a note of suspicion in Bobbie’s voice. “I hopeyou slept well, very well. Did you just wakeup?”
“Yes,” said Maya, who had shrewdly guessed that Bobbie would not likeher having overheard his conversation with Effie, the cricket, and didnot want to hurt his feelings again.
Bobbie ran hither and thither trying to look up and see Maya.
“Wait,” he said. “If I raise myself on my hind legs and lean againstthat blade of grass I’ll be able to see you, and you’ll be able to lookinto my eyes. You want to, don’t you?”
“Why, I do indeed. I’d like to very much.”
Bobbie found a suitable prop, the stem of a buttercup. The flowertipped a little to one side so that Maya could see him perfectly as heraised himself on his hind legs and looked up at her. She thought he hada nice, dear, friendly face—but not so very young any more andcheeks rather too plump. He bowed, setting56the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself:
“Bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles.”
Maya had to laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not arose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over insilence, not caring to mortify him.
“Don’t you mind the rain?” she asked.
“Oh, no. I’m accustomed to the rain—from the roses, you know.It’s usually raining there.”
Maya thought to herself:
“After all I must punish him a little for his brazen lies. He’s sofrightfully vain.”
“Bobbie,” she said with a sly smile, “what sort of a hole is that onethere, under the leaf?”
Bobbie started.
“A hole? A hole, did you say? There are very many holes round here.It’s probably just an ordinary hole. You have no idea how many holesthere are in the ground.”
Bobbie had hardly uttered the last word when something dreadfulhappened. In his eagerness to appear indifferent he had lost his balanceand toppled over. Maya heard a despairing shriek, and the next instantsaw the57beetle lying flat on his back in the grass, his arms and legs wavingpitifully in the air.
“I’m done for,” he wailed, “I’m done for. I can’t get back on my feetagain. I’ll never be able to get back on my feet again. I’ll die. I’lldie in this position. Have you ever heard of a worse fate!”
He carried on so that he did not hear Maya trying to comfort him. Andhe kept making efforts to touch the ground with his feet. But each timehe’d painfully get hold of a bit of earth, it would give way, and he’dfall over again on his high half-sphere of a back. The case lookedreally desperate, and Maya was honestly concerned; he was already quitepale in the face and his cries were heart-rending.
“I can’t stand it, I can’t stand this position,” he yelled. “At leastturn your head away. Don’t torture a dying man with your inquisitivestares.—If only I could reach a blade of grass, or the stem of thebuttercup. You can’t hold on to the air. Nobody can do that. Nobody canhold on to the air.”
Maya’s heart was quivering with pity.
“Wait,” she cried, “I’ll try to turn you over.58If I try very hard I am bound to succeed. But Bobbie, Bobbie,dear man, don’t yell like that. Listen to me. If I bend a blade of grassover and reach the tip of it to you, will you be able to use it and saveyourself?”
Bobbie had no ears for her suggestion. Frightened out of his senses,he did nothing but kick and scream.
So little Maya, in spite of the rain, flew out of her cover over to aslim green blade of grass beside Bobbie, and clung to it near the tip.It bent under her weight and sank directly above Bobbie’s wrigglinglimbs. Maya gave a little cry of delight.
“Catch hold of it,” she called.
Bobbie felt something tickle his face and quickly grabbed at it,first with one hand, then with the other, and finally with his legs,which had splendid sharp claws, two each. Bit by bit he drew himselfalong the blade until he reached the base, where it was thicker andstronger, and he was able to turn himself over onit.
He heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.
“Good God!” he exclaimed. “That was59awful. But for my presence of mind I should have fallen a victim to yourtalkativeness.”
“Are you feeling better?” asked Maya.
Bobbie clutched his forehead.
“Thanks, thanks. When this dizziness passes, I’ll tell you allaboutit.”
But Maya never got the answer to her question. A field-sparrow camehopping through the grass in search of insects, and the little beepressed herself close to the ground and kept very quiet until the birdhad gone. When she looked around for Bobbie he had disappeared. So shetoo made off; for the rain had stopped and the day was clear andwarm.
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CHAPTER V
THE ACROBAT
Oh,what a day!
The dew had fallen early in the morning, and when the sun rose andcast its slanting beams across the forest of grass, there was such asparkling and glistening and gleaming that you didn’t know what to sayor do for sheer ecstasy, it was so beautiful, so beautiful!
The moment Maya awoke, glad sounds greeted her from all round. Somecame out of the trees, from the throats of the birds, the dreadedcreatures who could yet produce such exquisite song; other happy callscame out of the air, from flying insects, or out of the grass61and the bushes, from bugs and flies, big ones and little ones.
Maya had made it very comfortable for herself in a hole in a tree. Itwas safe and dry, and stayed warm the greater part of the night becausethe sun shone on the entrance all day long. Once, early in the morning,she had heard a woodpecker rat-a-tat-tatting on the bark of the trunk,and had lost no time getting away. The drumming of a woodpecker is asterrifying to a little insect in the bark of a tree as the breaking openof our shutters by a burglar would be to us. But at night she was safein her lofty nook. At night no creatures came prying.
She had sealed up part of the entrance with wax, leaving just spaceenough to slip in and out; and in a cranny in the back of the hole,where it was dark and cool, she had stored a little honey against rainydays.
This morning she swung herself out into the sunshine with a cry ofdelight, all anticipation as to what the fresh, lovely day might bring.She sailed straight through the golden air, looking like a brisk dotdriven by the wind.
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“I am going to meet a human being to-day,” she cried. “I feel sure Iam. On days like this human beings must certainly be out in the open airenjoying nature.”
Never had she met so many insects. There was a coming and going andall sorts of doings; the air was alive with a humming and a laughing andglad little cries. You had to join in, you just had tojoinin.
After a while Maya let herself down into a forest of grass, where allsorts of plants and flowers were growing. The highest were the whitetufts of yarrow and butterfly-weed—the flaming milkweed that drewyou like a magnet. She took a sip of nectar from some clover and wasabout to fly off again when she saw a perfect droll of a beast perchedon a blade of grass curving above her flower. She was thoroughlyscared—he was such a lean green monster—but then herinterest was tremendously aroused, and she remained sitting still, asthough rooted to the spot, and stared straight at him.
At first glance you’d have thought he had horns. Looking closer yousaw it was his oddly63protuberant forehead that gave this impression. Two long, long feelersfine as the finest thread grew out of his brows, and his body was theslimmest imaginable, and green all over, even to his eyes. He had daintyforelegs and thin, inconspicuous wings that couldn’t be very practical,Maya thought. Oddest of all were his great hindlegs, which stuck up overhis body like two jointed stilts. His sly, saucy expression wascontradicted by the look of astonishment in his eyes, and you couldn’tsay there was any meanness in his eyes either. No, rather a lot of goodhumor.
“Well, mademoiselle,” he said to Maya, evidently annoyed by hersurprised expression, “never seen a grasshopper before? Or are youlaying eggs?”
“The idea!” cried Maya in shocked accents. “It wouldn’t occur to me.Even if I could, Iwouldn’t. It would be usurping the sacred dutiesof our queen. Iwouldn’t do such a foolish thing.”
The grasshopper ducked his head and made such a funny face that Mayahad to laugh out loud in spite of her chagrin.
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“Mademoiselle,” he began, then had to laugh himself, and said:“You’re a case! You’re a case!”
The fellow’s behavior made Maya impatient.
“Why do you laugh?” she asked in a not altogether friendly tone. “Youcan’t be serious expecting me to lay eggs, especially out here on thegrass.”
There was a snap. “Hoppety-hop,” said the grasshopper, and wasgone.
Maya was utterly non-plussed. Without the help of his wings he hadswung himself up in the air in a tremendous curve. Foolhardinessbordering on madness, she thought.
But there he was again. From where, she couldn’t tell, but there hewas, beside her, on a leaf of her clover.
He looked her up and down, all round, before and behind.
“No,” he said then, pertly, “you certainly can’t lay eggs. You’re notequipped for it. You haven’t got a borer.”
“What—borer?” Maya covered herself65with her wings and turned so that the stranger could see nothing but herface.
“Borer, that’s what I said.—Don’t fall off your base,mademoiselle.—You’re a wasp, aren’t you?”
To be called a wasp! Nothing worse could happen to little Maya.
“I never!” she cried.
“Hoppety-hop,” answered he, and was off again.
“The fellow makes me nervous,” she thought, and decided to fly away.She couldn’t remember ever having been so insulted in her life. What adisgrace to be mistaken for a wasp, one of those useless wasps, thosetramps, those common thieves! It really was infuriating.
But there he was again!
“Mademoiselle,” he called and turned round part way, so that his longhindlegs looked like the hands of a clock standing at five minutesbefore half-past seven, “mademoiselle, you must excuse me forinterrupting our conversation now and then. But suddenly I’m seized.Imust hop. Ican’t help66it, Imust hop, no matter where. Can’t you hop, too?”
He smiled a smile that drew his mouth from ear to ear. Maya couldn’tkeep from laughing.
“Can you?” said the grasshopper, and nodded encouragingly.
“Who are you?” asked Maya. “You’re terribly exciting.”
“Why, everybody knows who I am,” said the green oddity, and grinnedalmost beyond the limits of his jaws.
Maya never could make out whether he spoke in fun or in earnest.
“I’m a stranger in these parts,” she replied pleasantly, “else I’msure I’d know you.—But please note that I belong to the family ofbees, and am positively not a wasp.”
“My goodness,” said the grasshopper, “one and the same thing.”
Maya couldn’t utter a sound, she was so excited.
“You’re uneducated,” she burst out at length. “Take a good look at awasp once.”
“Why should I?” answered the green one.67“What good would it do if I observed differences that exist only inpeople’s imagination? You, abee, fly round in the air, stingeverything you come across, and can’t hop. Exactly the same with a wasp.So where’s the difference? Hoppety-hop!” And he was gone.
“But now I am going to fly away,” thought Maya.
There he was again.
“Mademoiselle,” he called, “there’s going to be a hopping-matchto-morrow. It will be held in the Reverend Sinpeck’s garden. Would youcare to have a complimentary ticket and watch the games? My old womanhas two left over. She’ll trade you one for a compliment. Iexpectto break the record.”
“I’m not interested in hopping acrobatics,” said Maya in somedisgust. “A person who flies has higher interests.”
The grasshopper grinned a grin you could almost hear.
“Don’t think too highly of yourself, my dear young lady. Mostcreatures in this world can fly, but only a very, very few can hop. You68don’t understand other people’s interests. You have no vision. Evenhuman beings would like a high elegant hop. The other day I saw theReverend Sinpeck hop a yard up into the air to impress a little snakethat slid across his road. His contempt for anything that couldn’t hopwas so great that he threw away his pipe. And reverends, you know,cannot live without their pipes. Ihave knowngrasshoppers—members of my own family—who could hop to aheight three hundred times their length. Now you’re impressed.You haven’t a word to say. And you’re inwardly regretting the remarksyou made and the remarks you intended to make. Three hundred times theirown length! Just imagine. Even the elephant, the largest animal in theworld, can’t hop as high as that. Well? You’re not saying anything.Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t have anything to say?”
“But how can I say anything if you don’t give me achance?”
“All right, then, talk,” said the grasshopper pleasantly.“Hoppety-hop.” He was gone.
Maya had to laugh in spite of her irritation.
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The fellow had certainly furnished her with a strange experience.Buffoon though he was, still she had to admire his wide information andworldly wisdom; and though she could not agree with his views ofhopping, she was amazed by all the new things he had taught her in theirbrief conversation. If he had been more reliable she would have beenonly too glad to ask him questions about a number of different things.It occurred to her that often people who are least equipped to profit byexperiences are the very ones who have them.
He knew the names of human beings. Did he, then, understand theirlanguage? If he came back, she’d ask him. And she’d also ask him what hethought of trying to go near a human being or of entering a humanbeing’s house.
“Mademoiselle!” A blade of grass beside Maya was set swaying.
“Goodness gracious! Where do you keep coming from?”
“The surroundings.”
“But do tell, do you hop out into the world70just so, without knowing where you mean to land?”
“Of course. Why not? Can you read the future? No one can. Onlythe tree-toad, but he never tells.”
“The things you know! Wonderful, simply wonderful!—Do youunderstand the language of human beings?”
“That’s a difficult question to answer, mademoiselle, because ithasn’t been proved as yet whether human beings have a language.Sometimes they utter sounds by which they seem to reach an understandingwith each other—but such awful sounds! So unmelodious! Likenothing else in nature that I know of. However, there’s one thing youmust allow them: they do seem to try to make their voices pleasanter.Once I saw two boys take a blade of grass between their thumbs and blowon it. The result was a whistle which may be compared with the chirpingof a cricket, though far inferior in quality of tone, far inferior.However, human beings make an honest effort.—Is there anythingelse you’d like to ask? Iknow a thing or two.”
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He grinned his almost-audible grin.
But the next time he hopped off, Maya waited for him in vain. Shelooked about in the grass and the flowers; he was nowhere to beseen.
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CHAPTER VI
PUCK
Maya,drowsy with the noonday heat, flew leisurely past the glare on thebushes in the garden, into the cool, broad-leaved shelter of a greatchestnut-tree.
On the trodden sward in the shade under the tree stood chairs andtables, evidently for an out-door meal. Ashort distance awaygleamed the red-tiled roof of a peasant’s cottage, with thin bluecolumns of smoke curling up from the chimneys.
Now at last, thought Maya, she was bound to see a human being. Hadshe not reached the very heart of his realm? The tree must73be his property, and the curious wooden contrivances in the shade belowmust belong to his hive.
Something buzzed; a fly alighted on the leaf beside her. It ran upand down the green veining in little jerks. You couldn’t see its legsmove, and it seemed to be sliding about excitedly. Then it flew from onefinger of the broad leaf to another, but so quickly and unexpectedlythat you might have thought it hadn’t flown but hopped. Evidently it waslooking for the most comfortable place on the leaf. Every now and then,in the way, it would swing itself up in the air ashort space and buzz vehemently, as though something dreadfully untowardhad occurred, or as though it were animated by some tremendous purpose.Then it would drop back to the leaf, as if nothing had happened, andresume its jerky racing up and down. Lastly, it would sit quite still,like a rigid image.
Maya watched its antics in the sunshine, then approached it and saidpolitely:
“How do you do? Welcome to my leaf. You are a fly, are you not?”
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“What else do you take me for?” said the little one. “My name isPuck. Iam very busy. Do you want to drive me away?”
“Why, not at all. I am glad to make your acquaintance.”
“I believe you,” was all Puck said, and with that he tried to pullhis head off.
“Mercy!” cried Maya.
“I must do this. You don’t understand. It’s something you knownothing about,” Puck rejoined calmly, and slid his legs over his wingstill they curved round the tip of his body. “I’m more than a fly,” headded with some pride. “I’m a housefly. Iflew out here for thefresh air.”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Maya gleefully. “Then you must know allabout human beings.”
“As well as the pockets of my trousers,” Puck threw out disdainfully.“I sit on them every day. Didn’t you know that? Ithoughtyou bees were so clever. You pretend to be at any rate.”
“My name is Maya,” said the little bee rather shyly. Where the otherinsects got75their self-assurance, to say nothing of their insolence, she couldn’tunderstand.
“Thanks for the information. Whatever your name, you’re asimpleton.”
Puck sat there tilted like a cannon in position to be fired off, hishead and breast thrust upward, the hind tip of his body resting on theleaf. Suddenly he ducked his head and squatted down, so that he lookedas if he had no legs.
“You’ve got to watch out and be careful,” he said. “That’s the mostimportant thing of all.”
But an angry wave of resentment was surging in little Maya. Theinsult Puck had offered her was too much. Without really knowing whatmade her do it, she pounced on him quick as lightning, caught him by thecollar and held him tight.
“I will teach you to be polite to a bee,” she cried.
Puck set up an awful howl.
“Don’t sting me,” he screamed. “It’s the only thing you can do, butit’s killing. Please remove the back of your body. That’s where76your sting is. And let me go, please let me go, if you possibly can.I’ll do anything you say. Can’t you understand a joke, amere joke?Everybody knows that you bees are the most respected of all insects, andthe most powerful, and the most numerous. Only don’t kill me, pleasedon’t. There won’t be any bringing me back to life. Good God! No oneappreciates my humor!”
“Very well,” said Maya with a touch of contempt in her heart, “I’lllet you live on condition that you tell me everything you know abouthuman beings.”
“Gladly,” cried Puck. “I’d have told you anyhow. But please let me gonow.”
Maya released him. She had stopped caring. Her respect for the flyand any confidence she might have had in him were gone. Of what valuecould the experiences of so low, so vulgar a creature be toserious-minded people? She would have to find out about human beings forherself.
The lesson, however, had not been wasted. Puck was much moreendurable now. Scolding and growling he set himself to rights. He77smoothed down his feelers and wings and the minute hairs on his blackbody—which were fearfully rumpled; for the girl-bee had laid ongood and hard—and concluded the operation by running his proboscisin and out several times—something new to Maya.
“Out of joint, completely out of joint!” he muttered in a painedtone. “Comes of your excited way of doing things. Look. See foryourself. The sucking-disk at the end of my proboscis looks like atwisted pewter plate.”
“Have you a sucking-disk?” asked Maya.
“Goodness gracious, of course!—Now tell me. What do you want toknow about human beings?—Never mind about my proboscis being outof joint. It’ll be all right.—I think I had best tell you a fewthings from my own life. You see, Igrew up among human beings, soyou’ll hear just what you want to know.”
“You grew up among human beings?”
“Of course. It was in the corner of their room that my mother laidthe egg from which I came. Imade my first attempts to walk on78their window-shades, and I tested the strength of my wings by flyingfrom Schiller to Goethe.”
“What are Schiller and Goethe?”
“Statues,” explained Puck, very superior, “statues of two men whoseem to have distinguished themselves. They stand under the mirror, oneon the right hand and one on the left hand, and nobody pays anyattention to them.”
“What’s a mirror? And why do the statues stand under the mirror?”
“A mirror is good for seeing your belly when you crawl on it. It’svery amusing. When human beings go up to a mirror, they either put theirhands up to their hair, or pull at their beards. When they are alone,they smile into the mirror, but if somebody else is in the room theylook very serious. What the purpose of it is, Icould never makeout. Seems to be some useless game of theirs. Imyself, when I wasstill a child, suffered a good deal from the mirror. I’d fly into it andof course be thrown back violently.”
Maya plied Puck with more questions about79the mirror, which he found very difficult to answer.
“Here,” he said at last, “you’ve certainly flown over the smoothsurface of water, haven’t you? Well, amirror is something like it,only hard and upright.”
The little fly, seeing that Maya listened most respectfully andattentively to the tale of his experiences, became a good dealpleasanter in his manners. And as for Maya’s opinion of Puck, althoughshe didn’t believe everything he told her, still she was sorry she hadthought so slightingly of him earlier in their meeting.
“Often people are far more sensible than we take them to be atfirst,” she told herself.
Puck went on with his story.
“It took a long time for me to get to understand their language. Nowat last I know what they want. It isn’t much, because they usually saythe same thing every day.”
“I can scarcely believe it,” said Maya. “Why, they have so manyinterests, and think so many things, and do so many things. Cassandratold me that they build cities so big80that you can’t fly round them in one day, towers as high as the nuptialflight of our queen, houses that float on the water, and houses thatglide across the country on two narrow silver paths and go faster thanbirds.”
“Wait a moment!” said Puck energetically. “Who is Cassandra? Who isshe, if I may make so bold as to ask? Well?”
“Oh, she was my teacher.”
“Teacher!” repeated Puck contemptuously. “Probably also a bee. Whobut a bee would overestimate human beings like that? Your MissCassandra, or whatever her name is, doesn’t know her history. Thosecities and towers and other human devices you speak of are none of themany good to us. Who would take such an impractical view of the world asyou do? If you don’t accept the premise that the earth is dominated bythe flies, that the flies are the most widespread and most importantrace on earth, you’ll scarcely get a real knowledge of the world.”
Puck took a few excited zigzag turns on the leaf and pulled at hishead, to Maya’s intense concern. However, the little bee had observed81by this time that there wasn’t much sense to be got out of his head anyway.
“Do you know how you can tell I am right?” asked Puck, rubbing hishands together as if to tie them in a knot. “Count the number of peopleand the number of flies in any room. The result will surprise you.”
“You may be right. But that’s not the point.”
“Do you think I was born this year?” Puck demanded all of asudden.
“I don’t know.”
“I passed through a winter,” Puck announced, all pride. “Myexperiences date back to the ice age. In a sense they take methrough the ice age. That’s why I’m here—I’m here torecuperate.”
“Whatever else you may be, you certainly are spunky,” remarkedMaya.
“I should say so,” exclaimed Puck, and made an airy leap out into thesunshine. “The flies are the boldest race in creation. We never run awayunless it is better to run away, and then we always comeback.—Have you ever sat on a human being?”
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“No,” said Maya, looking at the fly distrustfully out of the cornerof her eye. She still didn’t know quite what to make of him. “No, I’mnot interested in sitting on human beings.”
“Ah, dear child, that’s because you don’t know what it is. If everyou had seen the fun I have with the man at home, you’d turn green withenvy. I’ll tell you.—In my room there lives an elderly man whocherishes the color of his nose by means of a peculiar drink, which hekeeps hidden in the corner cupboard. It has a sweet, intoxicating smell.When he goes to get it he smiles, and his eyes grow small. He takes alittle glass, and he looks up to the ceiling while he drinks, to see ifI am there. Inod down to him, and he passes his hand over hisforehead, nose and mouth to show me where I am to sit later on. Then heblinks, and opens his mouth as wide as he can, and pulls down the shadeto keep the afternoon sun from bothering us. Finally he lays himselfdown on a something called a sofa, and in a short while begins to makedull snuffling sounds. Isuppose he thinks the sounds arebeautiful. We’ll talk about them some other83time. They are man’s slumber song. For me they are the sign that I am tocome down. The first thing I do is to take my portion from the glass,which he left for me. There’s something tremendously stimulating about adrop like that. Iunderstand human beings. Then I fly over and takemy place on the forehead of the sleeping man. The forehead lies betweenthe nose and the hair and serves for thinking. You can tell it does fromthe long furrows that go from right to left. They must move whenever aman thinks if something worth while is to result from his thinking. Theforehead also shows if human beings are annoyed. But then the folds runup and down, and a round cavity forms over the nose. As soon as I settleon his forehead and begin to run to and fro in the furrows, the manmakes a snatch in the air with his hands. He thinks I’m somewhere in theair. That’s because I’m sitting on his think-furrows, and he can’t workout so quickly where I really am. At last he does. He mutters and jabsat me. Now then, Miss Maya, or whatever your name is, now then, you’vegot to have your wits about84you. Isee the hand coming, but I wait until the last moment, thenI fly nimbly to one side, sit down, and watch him feel to see if I amstill there.—We kept the game up often for a full half hour. Youhave no idea what a lot of endurance the man has. Finally he jumps upand pours out a string of words which show how ungrateful he is. Well,what of it? Anoble soul seeks no reward. I’m already up on theceiling listening to his ungrateful outburst.”
“I can’t say I particularly like it,” observed Maya. “Isn’t it ratheruseless?”
“Do you expect me to erect a honeycomb on his nose?” exclaimed Puck.“You have no sense of humor, dear girl. What do you do that’suseful?”
Little Maya went red all over, but quickly collected herself to hideher embarrassment from Puck.
“The time is coming,” she flashed, “when I shall do something big andsplendid, and good and useful too. But first I want to see what is goingon in the world. Deep down in my heart I feel that the time iscoming.”
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As Maya spoke she felt a hot tide of hope and enthusiasm flood herbeing.
Puck seemed not to realize how serious she was, and how deeplystirred. He zigzagged about in his flurried way for a while, thenasked:
“You don’t happen to have any honey with you, do you, my dear?”
“I’m so sorry,” replied Maya. “I’d gladly let you have some,especially after you’ve entertained me so pleasantly, but I reallyhaven’t got any with me.—May I ask you one more question?”
“Shoot,” said Puck. “I’ll answer, I’ll always answer.”
“I’d like to know how I could get into a human being’s house.”
“Fly in,” said Puck sagaciously.
“But how, without running into danger?”
“Wait until a window is opened. But be sure to find the way outagain. Once you’re inside, if you can’t find the window, the best thingto do is to fly toward the light. You’ll always find plenty of windowsin every house. You need only notice where the86sun shines through. Are you going already?”
“Yes,” replied Maya, holding out her hand. “I have some things toattend to. Good-by. Ihope you quite recover from the effects ofthe ice age.”
And with her fine confident buzz that yet sounded slightly anxious,little Maya raised her gleaming wings and flew out into the sunshineacross to the flowery meadows to cull a little nourishment.
Puck looked after her, and carefully meditated what might still besaid. Then he observed thoughtfully:
“Well, now. Well, well.—Why not?”
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CHAPTER VII
IN THE TOILS
Afterher meeting with Puck the fly Maya was not in a particularly happy frameof mind. She could not bring herself to believe that he was right ineverything he had said about human beings, or right in his relations tothem. She had formed an entirely different conception—a muchfiner, lovelier picture, and she fought against letting her mind harborlow or ridiculous ideas of mankind. Yet she was still afraid to enter ahuman dwelling. How was she to know whether or not the owner would likeit? And she wouldn’t for all the world make herself a burden toanyone.
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Her thoughts went back once more to the things Cassandra had toldher.
“They are good and wise,” Cassandra had said. “They are strong andpowerful, but they never abuse their power. On the contrary, whereverthey go they bring order and prosperity. We bees, knowing they arefriendly to us, put ourselves under their protection and share our honeywith them. They leave us enough for the winter, they provide us withshelter against the cold, and guard us against the hosts of our enemiesamong the animals. There are few creatures in the world who have enteredinto such a relation of friendship and voluntary service with humanbeings. Among the insects you will often hear voices raised to speakevil of man. Don’t listen to them. If a foolish tribe of bees everreturns to the wild and tries to do without human beings, it soonperishes. There are too many beasts that hanker for our honey, and oftena whole bee-city—all its buildings, all its inhabitants—hasbeen ruthlessly destroyed, merely because a senseless animal wanted tosatisfy its greed for honey.”
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That is what Cassandra had told Maya about human beings, and untilMaya had convinced herself of the contrary, she wanted to keep thisbelief in them.
It was now afternoon. The sun was dropping behind the fruit trees ina large vegetable garden through which Maya was flying. The trees werelong past flowering, but the little bee still remembered them in theshining glory of countless blossoms, whiter than light, lovely, pure,and exquisite against the blue of the heavens. The delicious perfume,the gleam and the shimmer—oh, she’d never forget the rapture of itas long as she lived.
As she flew she thought of how all that beauty would come again, andher heart expanded with delight in the glory of the great world in whichshe was permitted to live.
At the end of the garden shone the starry tufts of thejasmine—delicate yellow faces set in a wreath of purewhite—sweet perfume wafted to Maya on the soft wings of thebreeze.
And weren’t there still some trees in bloom? Wasn’t it the season forlindens? Maya90thought delightedly of the big serious lindens, whose tops held the redglow of the setting sun to the very last.
She flew in among the stems of the blackberry vines, which wereputting forth green berries and yielding blossoms at the same time. Asshe mounted again to reach the jasmine, something strange to the touchsuddenly laid itself across her forehead and shoulders, and just asquickly covered her wings. It was the queerest sensation, as if herwings were crippled and she were suddenly restrained in her flight, andwere falling, helplessly falling. Asecret, wicked force seemed tobe holding her feelers, her legs, her wings in invisible captivity. Butshe did not fall. Though she could no longer move her wings, she stillhung in the air rocking, caught by a marvelously yielding softness anddelicacy, raised a little, lowered a little, tossed here, tossed there,like a loose leaf in a faint breeze.
Maya was troubled, but not as yet actually terrified. Why should shebe? There was no pain nor real discomfort of any sort. Simply that itwas so peculiar, so very peculiar,91and something bad seemed to be lurking in the background. She must geton. If she tried very hard, she could, assuredly.
But now she saw a thread across her breast, an elastic silvery threadfiner than the finest silk. She clutched at it quickly, in a cold waveof terror. It clung to her hand; it wouldn’t shake off. And there rananother silver thread over her shoulders. It drew itself across herwings and tied them together—her wings were powerless. And there,and there! Everywhere in the air and above her body—those bright,glittering, gluey threads!
Maya screamed with horror. Now she knew! Oh—oh, now she knew!She was in a spider’s web.
Her terrified shrieks rang out in the silent dome of the summer day,where the sunshine touched the green of the leaves into gold, andinsects flitted to and fro, and birds swooped gaily from tree to tree.Nearby, the jasmine sent its perfume into the air—the jasmine shehad wanted to reach. Now all was over.
A small bluish butterfly, with brown dots92gleaming like copper on its wings, came flying very close.
“Oh, you poor soul,” it cried, hearing Maya’s screams and seeing herdesperate plight. “May your death be an easy one, lovely child.Icannot help you. Some day, perhaps this very night, Ishallmeet with the same fate. But meanwhile life is still lovely for me.Good-by. Don’t forget the sunshine in the deep sleep of death.”
And the blue butterfly rocked away, drugged by the sunshine and theflowers and its own joy of living.
The tears streamed from Maya’s eyes; she lost her last shred ofself-control. She tossed her captive body to and fro, and buzzed as loudas she could, and screamed for help—from whom she did not know.But the more she tossed the tighter she enmeshed herself in the web.Now, in her great agony, Cassandra’s warnings went through her mind:
“Beware of the spider and its web. If we bees fall into the spider’spower we suffer the most gruesome death. The spider is heartless93and tricky, and once it has a person in its toils, it never letshimgo.”
In a great flare of mortal terror Maya made one huge desperateeffort. Somewhere one of the long, heavier suspension threads snapped.Maya felt it break, yet at the same time she sensed the awful doom ofthe cobweb. This was, that the more one struggled in it, the moreeffectively and dangerously it worked. She gave up, in completeexhaustion.
At that moment she saw the spider herself—very near, under ablackberry leaf. At sight of the great monster, silent and serious,crouching there as if ready to pounce, Maya’s horror was indescribable.The wicked shining eyes were fastened on the little bee in sinister,cold-blooded patience.
Maya gave one loud shriek. This was the worst agony of all. Deathitself could look no worse than that grey, hairy monster with her meanfangs and the raised legs supporting her fat body like a scaffolding.She would come rushing upon her, and then all would be over.
Now a dreadful fury of anger came upon94Maya, such as she had never felt before. Forgetting her great agony,intent only upon one thing—selling her life as dearly aspossible—she uttered her clear, alarming battle-cry, which allbeasts knew and dreaded.
“You will pay for your cunning with death,” she shouted at thespider. “Just come and try to kill me, you’ll find out what a beecando.”
The spider did not budge. She really was uncanny and must haveterrified bigger creatures than little Maya.
Strong in her anger, Maya now made another violent, desperate effort.Snap! One of the long suspension threads above her broke. The web wasprobably meant for flies and gnats, not for such large insects asbees.
But Maya got herself only more entangled.
In one gliding motion the spider drew quite close to Maya. She swungby her nimble legs upon a single thread with her body hanging straightdownward.
“What right have you to break my net?” she rasped at Maya. “What areyou doing here? Isn’t the world big enough for you?95Why do you disturb a peaceful recluse?”
That was not what Maya had expected to hear. Most certainly not.
“I didn’t mean to,” she cried, quivering with glad hope. Ugly as thespider was, still she did not seem to intend any harm. “I didn’t seeyour web and I got tangled in it. I’m so sorry. Pleasepardonme.”
The spider drew nearer.
“You’re a funny little body,” she said, letting go of the threadfirst with one leg, then with the other. The delicate thread shook. Howwonderful that it could support the great creature.
“Oh, do help me out of this,” begged Maya, “I should be sograteful.”
“That’s what I came here for,” said the spider, and smiled strangely.For all her smiling she looked mean and deceitful. “Your tossing andtugging spoils the whole web. Keep quiet one second, and I will set youfree.”
“Oh, thanks! Ever so many thanks!” cried Maya.
The spider was now right beside her. She96examined the web carefully to see how securely Maya was entangled.
“How about your sting?” she asked.
Ugh, how mean and horrid she looked! Maya fairly shivered withdisgust at the thought that she was going to touch her, but replied aspleasantly as she could:
“Don’t trouble about my sting. I will draw it in, and nobody can hurthimself on it then.”
“I should hope not,” said the spider. “Now, then, look out! Keepquiet. Too bad for my web.”
Maya remained still. Suddenly she felt herself being whirled roundand round on the same spot, till she got dizzy and sick and had to closeher eyes.—But what was that? She opened her eyes quickly. Horrors!She was completely enmeshed in a fresh sticky thread which the spidermust have had with her.
“My God!” cried little Maya softly, in a quivering voice. That wasall she said. Now she saw how tricky the spider had been; now she wasreally caught beyond release; now there was absolutely no chance ofescape. She97could no longer move any part of her body. The end was near.
Her fury of anger was gone, there was only a great sadness in herheart.
“I didn’t know there was such meanness and wickedness in the world,”she thought. “The deep night of death is upon me. Good-by, dear brightsun. Good-by, my dear friend-bees. Why did I leave you? Ahappylife to you. Imust die.”
The spider sat wary, a little to one side. She was still afraid ofMaya’s sting.
“Well?” she jeered. “How are you feeling, little girl?”
Maya was too proud to answer the false creature. She merely said,after a while when she felt she couldn’t bear any more:
“Please kill me right away.”
“Really!” said the spider, tying a few torn threads together.“Really! Do you take me to be as big a dunce as yourself? You’re goingto die anyhow, if you’re kept hanging long enough, and that’s the timefor me to suck the blood out of you—when you can’t sting. Too bad,though, that you can’t see how dreadfully98you’ve damaged my lovely web. Then you’d realize that you deserve todie.”
She dropped down to the ground, laid the end of the newly spun threadabout a stone, and pulled it in tight. Then she ran up again, caughthold of the thread by which little enmeshed Maya hung, and dragged hercaptive along.
“You’re going into the shade, my dear,” she said, “so that you shallnot dry up out here in the sunshine. Besides, hanging here you’re like ascarecrow, you’ll frighten away other nice little mortals who don’twatch where they’re going. And sometimes the sparrows come and rob myweb.—To let you know with whom you’re dealing, my name is Thekla,of the family of cross-spiders. You needn’t tell me your name. It makesno difference. You’re a fat bit, and you’ll taste just as tender andjuicy by any name.”
So little Maya hung in the shade of the blackberry vine, close to theground, completely at the mercy of the cruel spider, who intended her todie by slow starvation. Hanging with her little head downward—afearful99position to be in—she soon felt she would not last many moreminutes. She whimpered softly, and her cries for help grew feebler andfeebler. Who was there to hear? Her folk at home knew nothing of thiscatastrophe, so they couldn’t come hurrying to her rescue.
Suddenly down, in the grass, she heard some one growling:
“Make way! I’m coming.”
Maya’s agonized heart began to beat stormily. She recognized thevoice of Bobbie, the dung-beetle.
“Bobbie,” she called, as loud as she could, “Bobbie, dearBobbie!”
“Make way! I’m coming.”
“But I’m not in your way, Bobbie,” cried Maya. “Oh dear, I’m hangingover your head. The spider has caughtme.”
“Who are you?” asked Bobbie. “So many people know me. You know theydo, don’t you?”
“I am Maya—Maya, the bee. Oh please, please help me!”
“Maya? Maya?—Ah, now I remember. You made my acquaintanceseveral weeks ago.—The100deuce! You are in a bad way, if I must say so myself. Youcertainly do need my help. As I happen to have a few moments’ time,Iwon’t refuse.”
“Oh, Bobbie, can you tear these threads?”
“Tear those threads! Do you mean to insult me?” Bobbie slapped themuscles of his arm. “Look, little girl. Hard as steel. No match forthat in strength. Ican do more than smash a few cobwebs.You’ll see something that’ll make you open your eyes.”
Bobbie crawled up on the leaf, caught hold of the thread by whichMaya was hanging, clung to it, then let go of the leaf. The threadbroke, and they both fell to the ground.
“That’s only the beginning,” said Bobbie.—“But Maya, you’retrembling. My dear child, you poor little girl, how pale you are! Nowwho would be so afraid of death? You must look death calmly in the faceas I do. So. I’ll unwrap you now.”
Maya could not utter a syllable. Bright tears of joy ran down hercheeks. She was to be free again, fly again in the sunshine, wherevershe wished. She was to live.
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But then she saw the spider coming down the blackberry vine.
“Bobbie,” she screamed, “the spider’s coming.”
Bobbie went on unperturbed, merely laughing to himself. He really wasan extraordinarily strong insect.
“She’ll think twice before she comes nearer,” he said.
But there! The vile voice rasped above them:
“Robbers! Help! I’m being robbed. You fat lump, what are you doingwith my prey?”
“Don’t excite yourself, madam,” said Bobbie. “I have a right, haven’tI, to talk to my friend. If you say another word to displease me, I’lltear your whole web to shreds. Well? Why so silent all of a sudden?”
“I am defeated,” said the spider.
“That has nothing to do with the case,” observed Bobbie. “Now you’dbetter be getting away from here.”
The spider cast a look at Bobbie full of hate and venom; but glancingup at her web she reconsidered, and turned away slowly, furious,102scolding and growling under her breath. Fangs and stings were of noavail. They wouldn’t even leave a mark on armor such as Bobbie wore.With violent denunciations against the injustice in the world, thespider hid herself away inside a withered leaf, from which she could spyout and watch over her web.
Meanwhile Bobbie finished the unwrapping of Maya. He tore the networkand released her legs and wings. The rest she could do herself. Shepreened herself happily. But she had to go slow, because she was stillweak from fright.
“You must forget what you have been through,” said Bobbie. “Thenyou’ll stop trembling. Now see if you can fly. Try.”
Maya lifted herself with a little buzz. Her wings worked splendidly,and to her intense joy she felt that no part of her body had beeninjured. She flew slowly up to the jasmine flowers, drank avidly oftheir abundant scented honey-juice, and returned to Bobbie, who had leftthe blackberry vines and was sitting in the grass.
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“I thank you with my whole heart and soul,” said Maya, deeply movedand happy in her regained freedom.
“Thanks are in place,” observed Bobbie. “But that’s the way I alwaysam—always doing something for other people. Now fly away. I’dadvise you to lay your head on your pillow early to-night. Have you fartogo?”
“No,” said Maya. “Only a short way. I live at the edge of thebeech-woods. Good-by, Bobbie, I’ll never forget you, never, never, solong as I live. Good-by.”
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CHAPTER VIII
THE BUG AND THE BUTTERFLY
Heradventure with the spider gave Maya something to think about. She madeup her mind to be more cautious in the future, not to rush into thingsso recklessly. Cassandra’s prudent warnings about the greatest dangersthat threaten the bees, were enough to give one pause; and there wereall sorts of other possibilities, and the world was such a bigplace—oh, there was a good deal to make a little bee stop andthink.
It was in the evening particularly, when twilight fell and the littlebee was all by herself, that one consideration after another stirred hermind. But the next morning, if the105sun shone, she usually forgot half the things that had bothered her thenight before, and allowed her eagerness for experiences to drive her outagain into the gay whirl of life.
One day she met a very curious creature. It was angular and flat as apancake, but had a rather neat design on its sheath; and whether itssheath were wings or what, you couldn’t really tell. The odd littlemonster sat absolutely still on the shaded leaf of a raspberry bush, itseyes half closed, apparently sunk in meditation. The scent of theraspberries spread around it deliciously. Maya wanted to find out whatsort of an animal it was. She flew to the next-door leaf and saidhow-do-you-do. The stranger made no reply.
“How do you do, again?” And Maya gave its leaf a little tap. The flatobject peeled one eye open, turned it on Maya, and said:
“A bee. The world is full of bees,” and closed its eye again.
“Unique,” thought Maya, and determined to get at the stranger’ssecret. For now it excited her curiosity more than ever, as people oftendo who pay no attention to us. She tried106honey. “I have plenty of honey,” she said. “May I offer you some?” Thestranger opened its one eye and regarded Maya contemplatively a momentor two. “What is it going to say this time?” Maya wondered.
This time there was no answer at all. The one eye merely closedagain, and the stranger sat quite still, tight on the leaf, so that youcouldn’t see its legs and you’d have thought it had been pressed downflat with a thumb.
Maya realized, of course, that the stranger wanted to ignore her,but—you know how it is—you don’t like being snubbed,especially if you haven’t found out what you wanted to find out. Itmakes you feel so cheap.
“Whoever you are,” cried Maya, “permit me to inform you that insectsare in the habit of greeting each other, especially when one of themhappens to be a bee.” The bug sat on without budging. It did not so muchas open its one eye again. “It’s ill,” thought Maya. “How horrid to beill on a lovely day like this. That’s why it’s staying in the shade,too.” She flew over to the bug’s leaf and sat107down beside it. “Aren’t you feeling well?” she asked, so veryfriendly.
At this the funny creature began to move away. “Move” is the onlyword to use, because it didn’t walk, or run, or fly, or hop. It went asif shoved by an invisible hand.
“It hasn’t any legs. That’s why it’s so cross,” thought Maya.
When it reached the stem of the leaf it stopped a second, moved onagain, and, to her astonishment, Maya saw that it had left behind alittle brown drop.
“How very singular,” she thought—and clapped her hand toher nose and held it tight shut. The veriest stench came from the littlebrown drop. Maya almost fainted. She flew away as fast as she could andseated herself on a raspberry, where she held on to her nose andshivered with disgust and excitement.
“Serves you right,” someone above her called, and laughed. “Why takeup with a stink-bug?”
“Don’t laugh!” cried Maya.
She looked up. A white butterfly had alighted overhead on a slender,swaying branch108of the raspberry bush, and was slowly opening and closing its broadwings—slowly, softly, silently, happy in the sunshine—blackcorners to its wings, round black marks in the centre of each wing, fourround black marks in all. Ah, how beautiful, how beautiful! Maya forgother vexation. And she was glad, too, to talk to the butterfly. She hadnever made the acquaintance of one before even though she had met agreat many.
“Oh,” she said, “you probably are right to laugh. Was that astink-bug?”
“It was,” he replied, still smiling. “The sort of person to keep awayfrom. You’re probably very young still?”
“Well,” observed Maya, “I shouldn’t say I was—exactly. I’vebeen through a great deal. But that was the first specimen of the kind Ihad ever come across. Can you imagine doing such a thing?”
The butterfly had to laugh again.
“You see,” he explained, “stink-bugs like to keep to themselves. Theyare not very popular, so they use the odoriferous drop to make peopletake notice of them. We’d probably109soon forget the fact of their existence if it were not for the drop: itserves as a reminder. And they want to be remembered, no matterhow.”
“How lovely, how exquisitely lovely your wings are,” said Maya. “Sodelicate and white. May I introduce myself? Maya, of the nation ofbees.”
The butterfly laid his wings together to look like only one wingstanding straight up in the air. He gave a slight bow.
“Fred,” he said laconically.
Maya couldn’t gaze her fill.
“Fly a little,” she asked.
“Shall I fly away?”
“Oh no. I just want to see your great white wings move in the blueair. But never mind. Ican wait till later. Where do you live?”
“Nowhere specially. A settled home is too much of a nuisance. Lifedidn’t get to be really delightful until I turned into a butterfly.Before that, while I was still a caterpillar, Icouldn’t leave thecabbage the livelong day, and all one did was eat and squabble.”
“Just what do you mean?” asked Maya, mystified.
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“I used to be a caterpillar,” explained Fred.
“Never!” cried Maya.
“Now, now, now,” said Fred, pointing both feelers straight at Maya.“Everyone knows a butterfly is first a caterpillar. Even human beingsknowit.”
Maya was utterly perplexed. Could such a thing be?
“You must really explain more clearly,” she said. “I couldn’t acceptwhat you say just so, could I? You wouldn’t expect meto.”
The butterfly perched beside the little bee on the slender swayingbranch of the raspberry bush, and they rocked together in the morningwind. He told her how he had begun life as a caterpillar and then, oneday, when he had shed his last caterpillar skin, he came out a pupa orchrysalis.
“At the end of a few weeks,” he continued, “I woke up out of my darksleep and broke through the wrappings or pupa-case. Ican’t tellyou, Maya, what a feeling comes over you when, after a time like that,you suddenly see the sun again. Ifelt as though I were melting ina warm golden ocean, and I loved my111life so that my heart began to pound.”
“I understand,” said Maya, “I understand. I felt the same way thefirst time I left our humdrum city and flew out into the bright scentedworld of blossoms.” The little bee was silent a while, thinking of herfirst flight.—But then she wanted to know how the butterfly’slarge wings could grow in the small space of the pupa-case.
Fred explained.
“The wings are delicately folded together like the petals of a flowerin the bud. When the weather is bright and warm, the flower must open,it cannot help itself, and its petals unfold. So with my wings, theywere folded up, then unfolded. No one can resist the sun when itshines.”
“No, no—one cannot—one cannot resist the sunshine.” Mayamused, watching the butterfly as he perched in the golden light of themorning, pure white against the blue sky.
“People often charge us with being frivolous,” said Fred. “We’rereally happy—just that—just happy. You wouldn’t believe howseriously I sometimes think about life.”
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“Tell me what all you think.”
“Oh,” said Fred, “I think about the future. It’s very interesting tothink about the future.—But I should like to fly now. The meadowson the hillside are full of yarrow and canterbury bells; everything’s inbloom. I’d like to be there, you know.”
This Maya understood, she understood it well, and they said good-byand flew away in different directions, the white butterfly rockingsilently as if wafted by the gentle wind, little Maya with that uneasyzoom-zoom of the bees which we hear upon the flowers on fair days andwhich we always recall when we think of the summer.
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CHAPTER IX
THE LOST LEG
Nearthe hole where Maya had set herself up for the summer lived a family ofbark-boring beetles. Fridolin, the father, was an earnest, industriousman who wanted many children and took immense pains to bring up a largefamily. He had done very well: he had fifty energetic sons to fill himwith pride and high hopes. Each had dug his own meandering little tunnelin the bark of the pine-tree and all were getting on and werecomfortably settled.
“My wife,” Fridolin said to Maya, after they had known each othersome time,114“has arranged things so that none of my sons interferes with the others.They are not even acquainted; each goes his own way.”
Maya knew that human beings were none too fond of Fridolin and hispeople, though she herself liked him and liked his opinions and hadfound no reason to avoid him. In the morning before the sun arose andthe woods were still asleep, she would hear his fine tapping and boring.It sounded like a delicate trickling, or as if the tree were breathingin its sleep. Later she would see the thin brown dust that he hademptied out of his corridor.
Once he came at an early hour, as he often did, to wish hergood-morning and ask if she had slept well.
“Not flying to-day?” he inquired.
“No, it’s too windy.”
It was windy. The wind rushed and roared and flung the branches intoa mad tumult. The leaves looked ready to fly away. After each great gustthe sky would brighten, and in the pale light the trees seemed balder.The pine in which Maya and Fridolin lived shrieked115with the voices of the wind as in a fury of anger and excitement.
Fridolin sighed.
“I worked all night,” he told Maya, “all night. But what can you do?You’ve got to do something to get somewhere. And I’m notaltogether satisfied with this pine; Ishould have tackled afir-tree.” He wiped his brow and smiled in self-pity.
“How are your children?” asked Maya pleasantly.
“Thank you,” said Fridolin, “thank you for your interest.But”—he hesitated—“but I don’t supervise the way I used to.Still, Ihave reason to believe they are all doing well.”
As he sat there, a little brown man with slightly curtailedwing-sheaths and a breastplate that looked like a head too large for itsbody, Maya thought he was almost comical; but she knew he was adangerous beetle who could do immense harm to the mighty trees of theforest, and if his tribe attacked a tree in numbers then the greenneedles were doomed, the tree would turn and die. It was utterly116without defenses against the little marauders who destroyed the bark andthe sap-wood. And the sap-wood is necessary to the life of a treebecause it carries the sap up to the very tips of the branches. Therewere stories of how whole forests had fallen victims to the race ofboring-beetles. Maya looked at Fridolin reflectively; she was awed intosolemnity at the thought of the great power these little creaturespossessed and of how important they could become.
Fridolin sighed and said in a worried tone:
“Ah, life would be beautiful if there were no woodpeckers.”
Maya nodded.
“Yes, indeed, you’re right. The woodpecker gobbles up every insect hesees.”
“If it were only that,” observed Fridolin, “if it were only that hegot the careless people who fool around on the outside, on the bark, I’dsay, ‘Very well, awoodpecker must live too.’ But it seems allwrong that the bird should follow us right into our corridors into theremotest corners of our homes.”
“But he can’t. He’s too big, isn’t he?”
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Fridolin looked at Maya with an air of grave importance, lifting hisbrows and shaking his head two or three times. It seemed to please himthat he knew something she didn’t know.
“Too big? What difference does his size make? No, my dear, it’s nothis size we are afraid of; it’s his tongue.”
Maya made big eyes.
Fridolin told her about the woodpecker’s tongue: that it was long andthin, and round as a worm, and barbed and sticky.
“He can stretch his tongue out ten times my length,” cried thebark-beetle, flourishing his arm. “You think: ‘now—now he hasreached the limit, he can’t make it the tiniest bit longer.’ But no, hegoes on stretching and stretching it. He pokes it deep into all thecracks and crevices of the bark, on the chance that he’ll find somebodysitting there. He even pushes it into our passageways—actually,into our corridors and chambers. Things stick to it, and that’s the wayhe pulls us out of our homes.”
“I am not a coward,” said Maya, “I don’t118think I am, but what you say makes me creepy.”
“Oh, you’re all right,” said Fridolin, a little envious, “youwith your sting are safe. Aperson’ll think twice before he’ll letyou sting his tongue. Anybody’ll tell you that. But how about usbark-beetles? How do you think we feel? Acousin of mine gotcaught. We had just had a little quarrel on account of my wife.Iremember every detail perfectly. My cousin was paying us a visitand hadn’t yet got used to our ways or our arrangements. All of a suddenwe heard a woodpecker scratching and boring—one of the smallerspecies. It must have begun right at our building because as a rule wehear him beforehand and have time to run to shelter before hereachesus.
“Suddenly I heard my poor cousin scream in the dark: ‘Fridolin, I’msticking!’ Then all I heard was a short desperate scuffle, followed bycomplete silence, and in a few moments the woodpecker was hammering atthe house next door. My poor cousin! Her name was Agatha.”
“Feel how my heart is beating,” said Maya,119in a whisper. “You oughtn’t to have told it so quickly. My goodness, thethings that do happen!” And the little bee thought of her own adventuresin the past and the accidents that might still happen to her.
A laugh from Fridolin interrupted her reflections. She looked up insurprise.
“See who’s coming,” he cried, “coming up the tree. Here’s the fellowfor you! Itell you, he’s a—but you’ll see.”
Maya followed the direction of his gaze and saw a remarkable animalslowly climbing up the trunk. She wouldn’t have believed such a creaturewas possible if she had not seen it with her own eyes.
“Hadn’t we better hide?” she asked, alarm getting the better ofastonishment.
“Absurd,” replied the bark-beetle, “just sit still and be polite tothe gentleman. He is very learned, really, very scholarly, and what ismore, kind and modest and, like most persons of his type, rather funny.See what he’s doing now!”
“Probably thinking,” observed Maya, who couldn’t get over herastonishment.
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“He’s struggling against the wind,” said Fridolin, and laughed. “Ihope his legs don’t get entangled.”
“Are those long threads really his legs?” asked Maya, opening hereyes wide. “I’ve never seen the like.”
Meanwhile the newcomer had drawn near, and Maya got a better view ofhim. He looked as though he were swinging in the air, his rotund littlebody hung so high on his monstrously long legs, which groped for afooting on all sides like a movable scaffolding of threads. He steppedalong cautiously, feeling his way; the little brown sphere of his bodyrose and sank, rose and sank. His legs were so very long and thin thatone alone would certainly not have been enough to support his body. Heneeded all at once, unquestionably. As they were jointed in the middle,they rose high in the air above him.
Maya clapped her hands together.
“Well!” she cried. “Did you ever? Would you have dreamed that suchdelicate legs, legs as fine as a hair, could be so nimble anduseful—that one could really use them—and121they’d know what to do? Fridolin, Ithink it’s wonderful, simplywonderful.”
“Ah, bah,” said the bark-beetle. “Don’t take things so seriously.Just laugh when you see something funny; that’s all.”
“But I don’t feel like laughing. Often we laugh at something andlater find out it was just because we haven’t understood.”
By this time the stranger had joined them and was looking down atMaya from the height of his pointed triangles of legs.
“Good-morning,” he said, “a real wind-storm—a pretty strongdraught, don’t you think, or—no? You are of a different opinion?”He clung to the tree as hard as he could.
Fridolin turned to hide his laughing, but little Maya repliedpolitely that she quite agreed with him and that was why she had notgone out flying. Then she introduced herself. The stranger squinted downat her through his legs.
“Maya, of the nation of bees,” he repeated. “Delighted, really.Ihave heard a good deal about bees.—I myself belong to thegeneral122family of spiders, species daddy-long-legs, and my name isHannibal.”
The word spider has an evil sound in the ears of all smaller insects,and Maya could not quite conceal her fright, especially as she wasreminded of her agony in Thekla’s web. Hannibal seemed to take nonotice, so Maya decided, “Well if need be I’ll fly away, and he canwhistle for me; he has no wings and his web is somewhere else.”
“I am thinking,” said Hannibal, “thinking very hard.—If youwill permit me, Iwill come a little closer. That big branch theremakes a good shield against the wind.”
“Why, certainly,” said Maya, making room for him.
Fridolin said good-by and left. Maya stayed; she was eager to get atHannibal’s personality.
“The many, many different kinds of animals there are in the world,”she thought. “Every day a fresh discovery.”
The wind had subsided some, and the sun shone through the branches.From below rose the song of a robin redbreast, filling the123woods with joy. Maya could see it perched on a branch, could see itsthroat swell and pulse with the song as it held its little head raisedup to the light.
“If only I could sing like that robin redbreast,” she said, “I’dperch on a flower and keep it up the livelong day.”
“You’d produce something lovely, you would, with your humming andbuzzing.”
“The bird looks so happy.”
“You have great fancies,” said the daddy-long-legs. “Supposing everyanimal were to wish he could do something that nature had not fitted himto do, the world would be all topsy-turvy. Supposing a robin redbreastthought he had to have a sting—a sting above everythingelse—or a goat wanted to fly about gathering honey. Supposing afrog were to come along and languish for my kind of legs.”
Maya laughed.
“That isn’t just what I mean. I mean, it seems lovely to be able tomake all beings as happy as the bird does with his song.—Butgoodness gracious!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Mr. Hannibal, you have oneleg too many.”
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Hannibal frowned and looked into space, vexed.
“Well, you’ve noticed it,” he said glumly. “But as a matter offact—one leg too few, not too many.”
“Why? Do you usually have eight legs?”
“Permit me to explain. We spiders have eight legs. We need them all.Besides, eight is a more aristocratic number. One of my legs got lost.Too bad about it. However you manage, you make the best ofit.”
“It must be dreadfully disagreeable to lose a leg,” Mayasympathized.
Hannibal propped his chin on his hand and arranged his legs to keepthem from being easily counted.
“I’ll tell you how it happened. Of course, as usual when there’smischief, ahuman being is mixed up in it. We spiders are carefuland look what we’re doing, but human beings are careless, they grab yousometimes as though you were a piece of wood. Shall I tell you?”
“Oh, do please,” said Maya, settling herself comfortably. “It wouldbe awfully interesting.125You must certainly have gone through a good deal.”
“I should say so,” said Hannibal. “Now listen. We daddy-long-legs,you know, hunt by night. Iwas then living in a green garden-house.It was overgrown with ivy, and there were a number of brokenwindow-panes, which made it very convenient for me to crawl in and out.The man came at dark. In one hand he carried his artificial sun, whichhe calls lamp, in the other hand a small bottle, under his arm somepaper, and in his pocket another bottle. He put everything down on thetable and began to think, because he wanted to write his thoughts on thepaper.—You must certainly have come across paper in the woods orin the garden. The black on the paper is what man hasexcogitated—excogitated.”
“Marvelous!” cried Maya, all a-glow that she was to learn somuch.
“For this purpose,” Hannibal continued, “man needs both bottles. Heinserts a stick into the one and drinks out of the other. The more hedrinks, the better it goes. Of course126it is about us insects that he writes, everything he knows about us, andhe writes strenuously, but the result is not much to boast of, becauseup to now man has found out very little in regard to insects. He isabsolutely ignorant of our soul-life and hasn’t the least considerationfor our feelings. You’ll see.”
“Don’t you think well of human beings?” asked Maya.
“Oh, yes, yes. But the loss of a leg”—the daddy-long-legslooked down slantwise—“is apt to embitter one, rather.”
“I see,” said Maya.
“One evening I was sitting on a window-frame as usual, prepared forthe chase, and the man was sitting at the table, his two bottles beforehim, trying to produce something. It annoyed me dreadfully that a wholeswarm of little flies and gnats, upon which I depend for my subsistence,had settled upon the artificial sun and were staring into it in thatcrude, stupid, uneducated way of theirs.”
“Well,” observed Maya, “I think I’d look at a thing like thatmyself.”
“Look, for all I care. But to look and to127stare like an idiot are two entirely different things. Just watch onceand see the silly jig they dance around a lamp. It’s nothing for them tobutt their heads about twenty times. Some of them keep it up until theyburn their wings. And all the time they stare and stare at thelight.”
“Poor creatures! Evidently they lose their wits.”
“Then they had better stay outside on the window-frame or under theleaves. They’re safe from the lamp there, and that’s where I can catchthem.—Well, on that fateful night I saw from my position on thewindow-frame that some gnats were lying scattered on the table besidethe lamp drawing their last breath. The man did not seem to notice orcare about them, so I decided to go and take them myself. That’sperfectly natural, isn’tit?”
“Perfectly.”
“And yet, it was my undoing. I crept up the leg of the table, verysoftly, on my guard, until I could peep over the edge. The man seemeddreadfully big. Iwatched him working.128Then, slowly, very slowly, carefully lifting one leg at a time,Icrossed over to the lamp. As long as I was covered by the bottleall went well, but I had scarcely turned the corner, when the man lookedup and grabbed me. He lifted me by one of my legs, dangled me in frontof his huge eyes, and said: ‘See what’s here, just see what’s here.’ Andhe grinned—the brute!—he grinned with his whole face, asthough it were a laughing matter.”
Hannibal sighed, and little Maya kept quite still. Her head was in awhirl.
“Have human beings such immense eyes?” she asked at last.
“Please think of me in the position I was in,” criedHannibal, vexed. “Try to imagine how I felt. Who’d like to be hanging bythe leg in front of eyes twenty times as big as his own body and a mouthfull of gleaming teeth, each fully twice as big as himself? Well, whatdo you think?”
“Awful! Perfectly awful!”
“Thank the Lord, my leg broke off. There’s no telling what might havehappened if my129leg had not broken off. Ifell to the table, and then I ran,Iran as fast as my remaining legs would take me, and hid behindthe bottle. There I stood and hurled threats of violence at the man.They saved me, my threats did, the man was afraid to run after me.Isaw him lay my leg on the white paper, and I watched how itwanted to escape—which it can’t do withoutme.”
“Was it still moving?” asked Maya, prickling at the thought.
“Yes. Our legs always do move when they’re pulled out. My leg ran,but I not being there it didn’t know where to run to, so it merelyflopped about aimlessly on the same spot, and the man watched it,clutching at his nose and smiling—smiling, the heartlesswretch!—at my leg’s sense of duty.”
“Impossible,” said the little bee, quite scared, “an offen leg can’tcrawl.”
“An offen leg? What is an offen leg?”
“A leg that has come off,” explained Maya, staring at him. “Don’t youknow? At home we children used the word offen for anything that had comeoff.”
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“You should drop your nursery slang when you’re out in the world andin the presence of cultured people,” said Hannibal severely. “But itis true that our legs totter long after they have been torn fromour bodies.”
“I can’t believe it without proof.”
“Do you think I’ll tear one of my legs off to satisfy you?”Hannibal’s tone was ugly. “I see you’re not a fit person to associatewith. Nobody, I’d like you to know, nobody has ever doubted myword before.”
Maya was terribly put out. She couldn’t understand what had upset thedaddy-long-legs so, or what dreadful thing she had done.
“It isn’t altogether easy to get along with strangers,” she thought.“They don’t think the way we do and don’t see that we mean no harm.” Shewas depressed and cast a troubled look at the spider with his long legsand soured expression.
“Really, someone ought to come and eat you up.”
Hannibal had evidently mistaken Maya’s good nature for weakness. Fornow something unusual happened to the little bee. Suddenly131her depression passed and gave way, not to alarm or timidity, but to acalm courage. She straightened up, lifted her lovely, transparent wings,uttered her high clear buzz, and said with a gleam in her eyes:
“I am a bee, Mr. Hannibal.”
“I beg your pardon,” said he, and without saying good-by turned andran down the tree-trunk as fast as a person can run who has sevenlegs.
Maya had to laugh, willy-nilly. From down below Hannibal began toscold.
“You’re bad. You threaten helpless people, you threaten them withyour sting when you know they’re handicapped by a misfortune and can’tget away fast. But your hour is coming, and when you’re in a tight placeyou’ll think of me and be sorry.” Hannibal disappeared under the leavesof the coltsfoot on the ground. His last words had not reached thelittle bee.
The wind had almost died away, and the day promised to be fine. Whiteclouds sailed aloft in a deep, deep blue, looking happy and serene likegood thoughts of the Lord. Maya132was cheered. She thought of the rich shaded meadows by the woods and ofthe sunny slopes beyond the lake. Ablithe activity must have begunthere by this time. In her mind she saw the slim grasses waving and thepurple iris that grew in the rills at the edge of the woods. From theflower of an iris you could look across to the mysterious night of thepine-forest and catch its cool breath of melancholy. You knew that itsforbidding silence, which transformed the sunshine into a reddishhalf-light of sleep, was the home of the fairy tale.
Maya was already flying. She had started off instinctively, in answerto the call of the meadows and their gay carpeting of flowers. It was ajoy to be alive.
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CHAPTER X
THE WONDERS OF THE NIGHT
Thusthe days and weeks of her young life passed for little Maya among theinsects in a lovely summer world—a happy roving in garden andmeadow, occasional risks and many joys. For all that, she often missedthe companions of her early childhood and now and again suffered a pangof homesickness, an ache of longing for her people and the kingdom shehad left. There were hours, too, when she yearned for regular, usefulwork and association with friends of her own kind.
However, at bottom she had a restless nature, little Maya had, andwas scarcely ready134to settle down for good and live in the community of the bees; shewouldn’t have felt comfortable. Often among animals as well as humanbeings there are some who cannot conform to the ways of the others.Before we condemn them we must be careful and give them a chance toprove themselves. For it is not always laziness or stubbornness thatmakes them different. Far from it. At the back of their peculiar urge isa deep longing for something higher or better than what every-day lifehas to offer, and many a time young runaways have grown up into good,sensible, experienced men and women.
Little Maya was a pure, sensitive soul, and her attitude to the big,beautiful world came of a genuine eagerness for knowledge and a greatdelight in the glories of creation.
Yet it is hard to be alone even when you are happy, and the more Mayawent through, the greater became her yearning for companionship andlove. She was no longer so very young; she had grown into a strong,superb creature with sound, bright wings, asharp, dangerous sting,and a highly developed sense135of both the pleasures and the hazards of her life. Through her ownexperience she had gathered information and stored up wisdom, which shenow often wished she could apply to something of real value. There weredays when she was ready to return to the hive and throw herself at thequeen’s feet and sue for pardon and honorable reinstatement. But agreat, burning desire held her back—the desire to know humanbeings. She had heard so many contradictory things about them that shewas confused rather than enlightened. Yet she had a feeling that in thewhole of creation there were no beings more powerful or more intelligentor more sublime than they.
A few times in her wanderings she had seen people, but only fromafar, from high up in the air—big and little people, black people,white people, red people, and such as dressed in many colors. She hadnever ventured close. Once she had caught the glimmer of red near abrook, and thinking it was a bed of flowers had flown down. She found ahuman being fast asleep among the brookside blossoms. It had golden hairand a pink face and wore a136red dress. It was dreadfully large, of course, but still it looked sogood and sweet that Maya thrilled, and tears came to her eyes. She lostall sense of her whereabouts; she could do nothing but gaze and gazeupon the slumbering presence. All the horrid things she had ever heardagainst man seemed utterly impossible. Lies they must havebeen—mean lies that she had been told against creatures ascharming as this one asleep in the shade of the whisperingbirch-trees.
After a while a mosquito came and buzzed greetings.
“Look!” cried Maya, hot with excitement and delight. “Look, just lookat that human being there. How good, how beautiful! Doesn’t it fill youwith enthusiasm?”
The mosquito gave Maya a surprised stare, then turned slowly round toglance at the object of her admiration.
“Yes, it is good. I just tasted it. I stung it. Look, my bodyis shining red with its blood.”
Maya had to press her hand to her heart, so startled was she by themosquito’s daring.
“Will it die?” she cried. “Where did you137wound it? How could you? How could you screw up your courage to stingit? And how vile! Why, you’re a beast of prey!”
The mosquito tittered.
“Why, it’s only a very little human being,” it answered in its high,thin voice. “It’s the size called girl—the size at which the legsare covered half way up with a separate colored casing. My sting, ofcourse, goes through the casing but usually doesn’t reach theskin.—Your ignorance is really stupendous. Do you actually thinkthat human beings are good? Ihaven’t come across one who willinglylet me take the tiniest drop of his blood.”
“I don’t know very much about human beings, I admit,” said Mayahumbly.
“But of all the insects you bees have most to do with human beings.That’s a well-known fact.”
“I left our kingdom,” Maya confessed timidly. “I didn’t like it.Iwanted to learn about the outside world.”
“Well, well, what do you think of that!” The mosquito drew a stepnearer. “How do you like your free-lancing? Imust say,Iadmire138you for your independence. Ifor one would never consent to servehuman beings.”
“But they serve us too!” said Maya, who couldn’t bear a slight to beput upon her people.
“Maybe.—To what nation do you belong?”
“I come of the nation in the castle park. The ruling queen is HelenVIII.”
“Indeed,” said the mosquito, and bowed low. “An enviable lineage. Mydeepest respects.—There was a revolution in your kingdom not solong ago, wasn’t there? Iheard it from the messengers of the rebelswarm. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Maya, proud and happy that her nation was so respectedand renowned. Homesickness for her people awoke again, deep down in herheart, and she wished she could do something good and great for herqueen and country. Carried away on the wings of this dream, she forgotto ask about human beings. Or, like as not, she refrained fromquestions, feeling that the mosquito would not tell her things she wouldbe glad to hear. The mite of a creature impressed her as a saucy139Miss, and people of her kind usually had nothing good to say of others.Besides, she soon flew away.
“I’m going to take one more drink,” she called back to Maya. “Later Iand my friends are going flying in the light of the westering sun. Thenwe’ll be sure to have good weather to-morrow.”
Maya made off quickly. She couldn’t bear to stay and see the mosquitohurt the sleeping child. And how could she do this thing and not perish?Hadn’t Cassandra said: “If you sting a human being, you will die?”
Maya still remembered every detail of this incident with the childand the mosquito, but her craving to know human beings well had not beenstilled. She made up her mind to be bolder and never stop trying untilshe had reached her goal.
At last Maya’s longing to know human beings was to be satisfied, andin a way far, far lovelier and more wonderful than she had dreamed.
Once, on a warm evening, having gone to140sleep earlier than usual, she woke up suddenly in the middle of thenight—something that had never happened to her before. When sheopened her eyes, her astonishment was indescribable: her little bedroomwas all steeped in a quiet bluish radiance. It came down through theentrance, and the entrance itself shone as if hung with a silver-bluecurtain.
Maya did not dare to budge at first, though not because she wasfrightened. No. Somehow, along with the light came a rare, lovelypeacefulness, and outside her room the air was filled with a soundfiner, more harmonious than any music she had ever heard. After a timeshe rose timidly, awed by the glamour and the strangeness of it all, andlooked out. The whole world seemed to lie under the spell of anenchantment. Everything was sparkling and glittering in pure silver. Thetrunks of the birch-trees, the slumbering leaves were overlaid withsilver. The grass, which from her height seemed to lie under delicateveils, was set with a thousand pale pearls. All things near and far, thesilent distances, were shrouded in this soft, bluish sheen.
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“This must be the night,” Maya whispered and folded her hands.
High up in the heavens, partly veiled by the leaves of a beech-tree,hung a full clear disk of silver, from which the radiance poured downthat beautified the world. And then Maya saw countless bright, sharplittle lights surrounding the moon in the heavens—oh, so still andbeautiful, unlike any shining things she had ever seen before. To thinkshe beheld the night, the moon, and the stars—the wonders, thelovely wonders of the night! She had heard of them but never believed inthem. It was almost too much.
Then the sound rose again, the strange night sound that must haveawakened her. It came from nearby, filling the welkin, asoaringchirp with a silvery ring that matched the silver on the trees andleaves and grass and seemed to come rilling down from the moon on thebeams of silver light.
Maya looked about for the source, in vain; in the mysterious drift oflight and shadow it was difficult to make out objects in clear outline,everything was draped so mysteriously;142and yet everything showed up true and in such heroic beauty.
Her room could keep her no longer; out she had to fly into this newsplendor, the night splendor.
“The good Lord will take care of me,” she thought, “I am not bentupon wrong.”
As she was about to fly off through the silver light to her favoritemeadow, now lying full under the moon, she saw a winged creature alighton a beech-tree leaf not far away. Scarcely alighted, it raised its headto the moon, lifted its narrow wings, and drew the edge of one againstthe other, for all the world as though it were playing on a violin. Andsure enough, the sound came, the silvery chirp that filled the wholemoonlit world with melody
“Exquisite,” whispered Maya, “heavenly, heavenly, heavenly.”
She flew over to the leaf. The night was so mild and warm that shedid not notice it was cooler than by day. When she touched the leaf, thechirper broke off playing abruptly, and to Maya it seemed as if therehad never143been such a stillness before, so profound was the hush that followed. Itwas uncanny. Through the dark leaves filtered the light, white andcool.
“Good night,” said Maya, politely, thinking “good night” was thegreeting for the night like “good morning” for the morning. “Pleaseexcuse me for interrupting, but the music you make is so fascinatingthat I had to find out where it came from.”
The chirper stared at Maya, wide-eyed.
“What sort of a crawling creature are you?” it asked after somemoments had passed. “I have never met one like you before.”
“I am not a crawling insect. I am Maya, of the nation of bees.”
“Oh, of the nation of bees. Indeed ... you live by day, don’t you?Ihave heard of your race from the hedgehog. He told me that in theevening he eats the dead bodies that are thrown out of your hive.”
“Yes,” said Maya, with a faint chill of apprehension, “that’s so;Cassandra told me about him; she heard of him from the sentinels. Hecomes when twilight falls and144snouts in the grass looking for dead bodies.—But do you associatewith the hedgehog? Why, he’s an awful brute.”
“I don’t think so. We tree-crickets get along with him splendidly. Wecall him Uncle. Of course he always tries to catch us, but he neversucceeds, so we have great fun teasing him. Everybody has to live,doesn’t he? Just so he doesn’t live off me, what do I care?”
Maya shook her head. She didn’t agree. But not caring to insult thecricket by contradicting, she changed the subject.
“So you’re a tree-cricket?”
“Yes, a snowy tree-cricket.—But I must play, so please don’tkeep me any longer. It’s full moon, awonderful night. Imustplay.”
“Oh, do make an exception this once. You play all thetime.—Tell me about the night.”
“A midsummer night is the loveliest in the world,” answered thecricket. “It fills the heart with rapture.—But what my musicdoesn’t tell you I shan’t be able to explain. Why need everythingbe explained? Why145know everything? We poor creatures can find out only the tiniestbit about existence. Yet we can feel the glory of the whole wideworld.” And the cricket set up its happy silvery strumming. Heard fromclose by, where Maya sat, the music was overpowering in itsloudness.
The little bee sat quite still in the blue summer night listening andmusing deeply about life and creation.
Silence fell. There was a faint whirr, and Maya saw the cricket flyout into the moonlight.
“The night makes one feel sad,” she reflected.
Her flowery meadow drew her now. She flew off.
At the edge of the brook stood the tall irises brokenly reflected inthe running water. Aglorious sight. The moonlight was whirledalong in the braided current, the wavelets winked and whispered, theirises seemed to lean over asleep. “Asleep from sheer delight,” thoughtthe little bee. She dropped down on a blue petal in the full light ofthe146moon and could not take her eyes from the living waters of the brook,the quivering flash, the flashing come and go of countless sparks. Onthe bank opposite, the birch-trees glittered as if hung with thestars.
“Where is all that water flowing to?” she wondered. “The cricket isright. We know so little about the world.”
Of a sudden a fine little voice rose in song from the flower of aniris close beside her, ringing like a pure, clear bell, different fromany earthly sound that Maya knew. Her heart throbbed, she held herbreath.
“Oh, what is going to happen? What am I going to see now?”
The iris swayed gently. One of the petals curved in at the edge, andMaya saw a tiny snow-white human hand holding on to the flower’s rimwith its wee little fingers. Then a small blond head arose, and then adelicate luminous body in white garments. Ahuman being inminiature was coming up out of the iris.
A human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris
Words cannot tell Maya’s awe and rapture. She sat rigid.
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The tiny being climbed to the edge of the blossom, lifted its arms upto the moonlight, and looked out into the bright shining night with asmile of bliss lighting up its face. Then a faint quiver shook itsluminous body, and from its shoulders two wings unfolded, whiter thanthe moonlight, pure as snow, rising above its blond head and reachingdown to its feet. How lovely it was, how exquisitely lovely. Nothingthat Maya had ever seen compared with it in loveliness.
Standing there in the moonlight, holding its hands up to heaven, theluminous little being lifted its voice again and sang. The song rang outin the night, and Maya understood the words.
My home is Light. The crystal bowl
Of Heaven’s blue, I love it so!
Both Death and Life will change, I know,
But not my soul, my living soul.
My soul is that which breathes anew
From all of loveliness and grace;
And as it flows from God’s own face,
It flows from His creations, too.
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Maya burst into sobs. What it was that made her so sad and yet sohappy, she could not have told.
The little human being turned around.
“Who is crying?” he asked in his chiming voice.
“It’s only me,” stammered Maya. “Excuse me for interrupting you.”
“But why are you crying?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps just because you are so beautiful. Who areyou? Oh, do tell me, if I am not asking too much. You are an angel,aren’t you? You mustbe.”
“Oh, no,” said the little creature, quite serious. “I am only asprite, aflower-sprite.—But, dear little bee, what are youdoing out here in the meadow so late at night?”
The sprite flew over to a curving iris blade beside Maya and regardedher long and kindly from his swaying perch in the moonlight.
Maya told him all about herself, what she had done, what she knew,and what she longed for. And while she spoke, his eyes never left her,those large dark eyes glowing in the white149fairy face under the golden hair that ever and anon shone like silver inthe moonlight.
When she finished he stroked her head and looked at her so warmly andlovingly that the little bee, beside herself with joy, had to lower hergaze.
“We sprites,” he explained, “live seven nights, but we must stay inthe flower in which we are born, else we die at dawn.”
Maya opened her eyes wide in terror.
“Then hurry, hurry! Fly back into your flower!”
The, sprite shook his head sadly.
“Too late.—But listen. I have more to tell you. Most of ussprites are glad to leave our flowers never to return, because a greathappiness is connected with our leaving. We are endowed with aremarkable power: before we die, we can fulfill the dearest wish of thefirst creature we meet. It is when we make up our minds seriously toleave the flower for the purpose of making someone happy that our wingsgrow.”
“How wonderful!” cried Maya. “I’d leave the flower too, then. It mustbe lovely to fulfill150another person’s wish.” That she was the first being whom thesprite on his flight from the flower had met, did not occur to her. “Andthen—must you die?”
The sprite nodded, but not sadly this time.
“We live to see the dawn still,” he said, “but when the dew falls, weare drawn into the fine cobwebby veils that float above the grass andthe flowers of the meadows. Haven’t you often noticed that the veilsshine white as though a light were inside them? It’s the sprites, theirwings and their garments. When the light rises we change into dew-drops.The plants drink us and we become a part of their growing and bloominguntil in time we rise again as sprites from out their flowers.”
“Then you were once another sprite?” asked Maya, tense, breathlesswith interest.
The earnest eyes said yes.
“But I have forgotten my earlier existence. We forget everything inour flower-sleep.”
“Oh, what a lovely fate!”
“It is the same as that of all earthly creatures,151when you really come to think of it, even if it isn’t always flowers outof which they wake up from their sleep of death. But we won’t talk ofthat to-night.”
“Oh, I’m so happy!” cried Maya.
“Then you haven’t got a wish? You’re the first person I’ve met, youknow, and I possess the power to grant your dearest wish.”
“I? But I’m only a bee. No, it’s too much. It would be too great ajoy. Idon’t deserve it, Idon’t deserve that you should be sogood tome.”
“No one deserves the good and the beautiful. The good and thebeautiful come to us like the sunshine.”
Maya’s heart beat stormily. Oh, she did have a wish, a burning wish,but she didn’t dare confess it. The elf seemed to guess; he smiled soyou couldn’t keep anything a secret from him.
“Well?” He stroked his golden hair off his pure forehead.
“I’d like to know human beings at their best and most beautiful,”said the little bee. She spoke quickly and hotly. She was afraid152she would be told that so great a wish could not be granted.
But the sprite drew himself up, his expression was serious andserene, his eyes shone with confidence. He took Maya’s trembling handand said:
“Come. We’ll fly together. Your wish shall be granted.”
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CHAPTER XI
WITH THE SPRITE
Andso Maya and the flower-sprite started off together in the brightmid-summer night, flying low over the blossomy meadow. His whitereflection crossing the brook shone as though a star were glidingthrough the water.
How happy the little bee was to confide herself to this graciousbeing! Whatever he were to do, wherever he were to lead her would begood and right, she felt. She would have liked to ask him a thousandquestions had she dared.
As they were passing between a double row of high poplar-trees,something whirred154above them; adark moth, as big and strong as a bird, crossed theirway.
“One moment, wait one moment, please,” the sprite called.
Maya was surprised to see how readily the moth responded.
All three alighted on a high poplar branch, from which there was afar view out upon the tranquil, moonlit landscape. The quaking leaveswhispered delicately. The moth, perching directly opposite Maya in thefull light of the moon, slowly lifted his spread wings and dropped themagain, softly, as if gently fanning—fanning a cool breath uponsomeone. Broad, diagonal stripes of a gorgeous bright blue marked hiswings, his black head was covered as with dark velvet, his face was likea strangely mysterious mask, out of which glowed a pair of dark eyes.How wonderful were the creatures of the night! Alittle cold shiverran through Maya, who felt she was dreaming the strangest dream of herlife.
“You are beautiful,” she said to the moth, “beautiful, really.” Shewas awed and solemn.
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“Who is your companion?” the moth asked the sprite.
“A bee. I met her just as I was leaving my flower.”
The moth seemed to realize what that meant. He looked at Maya almostenviously.
“You fortunate creature!” he said in a low, serious, musing tone,shaking his head to and fro.
“Are you sad?” asked Maya out of the warmth of her heart.
The moth shook his head.
“No, not sad.” His voice sounded friendly and grateful, and he gaveMaya such a kind look that she would have liked to strike up afriendship with him then and there.
“Is the bat still abroad, or has he gone to rest?” This was thequestion for which the sprite had stopped the moth.
“Oh, he’s gone to rest long ago. You want to know, do you, on accountof your companion?”
The sprite nodded. Maya was dying to find out what a bat was, but thesprite seemed to be in a hurry. With a charming gesture of156restlessness he tossed his shining hair back from his forehead.
“Come, Maya,” he said, “we must hurry. The night is so short.”
“Shall I carry you part of the way?” asked the moth.
The sprite thanked him but declined. “Some other time!” hecalled.
“Then it will be never,” thought Maya as they flew away, “because atdawn the flower-sprite must die.”
The moth remained on the leaf looking after them until the glimmer ofthe fairy garments grew smaller and smaller and finally sank into thedepths of the blue distance. Then he turned his face slowly and surveyedhis great dark wings with their broad blue stripes. He sank intorevery.
“So often I have heard that I am gray and ugly,” he said to himself,“and that my dress is not to be compared with the superb robes of thebutterfly. But the little bee saw only what is beautiful inme.—And she asked me if I was sad. Iwonder whether I am ornot.—No, Iam not sad,” he decided, “not now.”
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Meanwhile Maya and the flower-sprite flew through the dense shrubberyof a garden. The glory of it in the dimmed moonlight was beyond thepower of mortal lips to say. An intoxicatingly sweet cool breath of dewand slumbering flowers transformed all things into unutterableblessings. The lilac grapes of the acacias sparkled in freshness, theJune rose-tree looked like a small blooming heaven hung with red lamps,the white stars of the jasmine glowed palely, sadly, and poured outtheir perfume as if, in this one hour, to make a gift of their all.
Maya was dazed. She pressed the sprite’s hand and looked at him.Alight of bliss shone from his eyes.
“Who could have dreamed of this!” whispered the little bee.
Just then she saw something that sent a pang through her.
“Oh,” she cried, “look! A star has fallen! It’s straying about andcan’t find its way back to its place in the sky.”
“That’s a firefly,” said the flower-sprite, without a smile.
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Now, in the midst of her amazement, Maya realized for the first timewhy the sprite seemed so dear and kind. He never laughed at herignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong.
“They are odd little creatures,” the sprite continued. “They carrytheir own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven thedark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn’t shine through. Sofirefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. Later, when wecome to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one ofthem.”
“Why?” asked Maya.
“You’ll soon see.”
By this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown withjasmine and woodbine. They descended almost to the ground. From closeby, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering. Theflower-sprite beckoned to a firefly.
“Would you be good enough,” he asked, “to give us a little light? Wehave to push through these dark leaves here; we want to159get to the inside of the jasmine-arbor.”
“But your glow is much brighter than mine.”
“I think so, too,” put in Maya, more to hide her excitement thananything else.
“I must wrap myself up in a leaf,” explained the sprite,else the humanbeings would see me and be frightened. We sprites appear to human beingsonly in their dreams.”
“I see,” said the firefly. “I am at your service. I will do what Ican.—Won’t the great beast with you hurtme?”
The sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him.
The sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam ofhis white garments was completely hidden. Then he picked a littlebluebell from the grass and put it on his shining head like a helmet.The only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small thatsurely no one would notice it. He asked the firefly to perch on hisshoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keepthe dazzle out of his eyes.
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“Come now,” he said, taking Maya’s hand. “We had better climb upright here.”
The little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and asthey clambered up the vine, she asked:
“Do human beings dream when they sleep?”
“Not only then. They dream sometimes even when they are awake. Theysit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward,and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the veryheavens. Their dreams are always lovelier than life. That’s why weappear to them in their dreams.”
The sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a smallblooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed Maya ahead.
“Look down,” he said softly, “you’ll see what you have been wishingto see.”
The little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench inthe shadows cast by the moonlight—a boy and a girl, the girl withher head leaning on the boy’s shoulder, and the boy holding his armaround the girl161as if to protect her. They sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyedinto the night. It was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. Onlyfrom a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowlythe moonlight drifted through the leaves.
Maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl’s face.Although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by thehidden radiance of a great happiness. Above her large eyes lay goldenhair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested theheavenly sheen of the midsummer night. From her red lips, slightlyparted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted tooffer everything that was hers to the man by her side for hishappiness.
And now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered amagical something that brought a smile to his face such as Maya thoughtno earthly being could wear. In his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigoras if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortunewere banished forever from the face of the earth.
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Maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply.Her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the twohuman beings was also hers.
“Now I have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will everbehold,” she whispered to herself. “I know now that human beings aremost beautiful when they are in love.”
How long Maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost inlooking at the boy and girl, she did not know. When she turned round,the firefly’s lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. Throughthe doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizonshowed a narrow streak of red.
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CHAPTER XII
ALOIS, LADYBIRD AND POET
Thesun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when Maya awoke inher woodland retreat. In the first moments, the moonlight, the chirpingof the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boyand the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of adelicious dream. Yet here it was almost midday; and she rememberedslipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. So it had all beenreal, she had spent the night with the flower-sprite andhad seen the two human beings, with their arms round each other,in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine.
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The sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind wasstirring, and Maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. Ah,what these knew, and what she knew! So proud was she of the greatthing that had happened to her that she couldn’t get out to the othersfast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks.
But in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. Nothing waschanged; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. The insects came, saidhow-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustlingactivity; the insects, birds and butterflies hopped, flew and flitted inthe hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers.
Sadness fell upon Maya. There was no one in the world to share herjoys and sorrows. She couldn’t make up her mind to fly over and join theothers in the meadow. No, she would go to the woods. The woods wereserious and solemn. They suited her mood.
How many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of thewoods, no one suspects who hurries unobservant along the165beaten tracks. You must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, orlean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tallgrasses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of theplants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark ofstumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground likeserpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, fullof joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures.
Maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between thedark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. She followed a narrowtrail in the grass, which made a clear path through thicket andclearing. Now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, sodeep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery;but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and greenabove the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry.
After a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-archedportals; before Maya’s eyes lay a wide field of grain in the166golden sunshine. Butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. Shealighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field andgazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillityof the placid day. It rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, whichblew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world.
Under the birch-tree a few small brown butterflies, using thebutterfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner,afavorite game with butterfly-children. Maya watched them awhile.
“It must be lots of fun,” she thought, “and the children in the hivemight be taught to play it, too. The cells would do forcorners.—But Cassandra, Isuppose, wouldn’t permit it. She’sso strict.”
Ah, now Maya felt sad again. Because she had thought of home. And shewas about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someonebeside her say:
“Good morning. You’re a beast, it seems to me.”
Maya turned with a start.
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“No,” she said, “decidedly not.”
There sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cottahalf-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, aminuteblack head and bright little eyes. Peeping from under the dotted domeand supporting it as best they could Maya detected thin legs fine asthreads. In spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great likingto the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm.
“May I ask who you are? I myself am Maya of the nation of bees.”
“Do you mean to insult me? You have no reason to.”
“But why should I? I don’t know you, really I don’t.” Maya was quiteupset.
“It’s easy to say you don’t know me.—Well, I’ll jog yourmemory. Count.” And the little rotundity began to wheel roundslowly.
“You mean I’m to count your dots?”
“Yes, if you please.”
“Seven,” said Maya.
“Well?—Well? You still don’t know. All right then, I’ll tellyou. I’m called exactly168according to what you counted. The scientific name of our family isSeptempunctata. Septem is Latin for seven, punctata isLatin for dots, points, you see. Our common name is ladybird, my ownname is Alois, Iam a poet by profession. You know our common name,of course.”
Maya, afraid of hurting Alois’ feelings, didn’t dare tosayno.
“Oh,” said he, “I live by the sunshine, by the peace of the day, andby the love of mankind.”
“But don’t you eat, too?” asked Maya, quite astonished.
“Of course. Plant-lice. Don’t you?”
“No. That would be—that is....”
“Is what? Is what?”
“Not—usual,” said Maya shyly.
“Of course, of course!” cried Alois, trying to raise one shoulder,but not succeeding, on account of the firm set of his dome. “As abourgeoise you would, of course, do only what is usual. We poets wouldnot get very far that way.—Have you time?”
“Why, yes,” said Maya.
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“Then I’ll recite you one of my poems. Sit real still and close youreyes, so that nothing distracts your attention. The poem is calledMan’s Finger, and is about a personal experience. Are youlistening?”
“Yes, to every word.”
“Well, then:
“‘Since you did not do me wrong,
That you found me, doesn’t matter.
You are rounded, you are long;
Up above you wear a flatter,
Pointed, polished sheath or platter
Which you move as swift as light,
But below you’re fastened tight!’”
“Well?” asked Alois after a short pause. There were tears in his eyesand a quaver in his voice.
“Man’s Finger gripped me very hard,” replied Maya in someembarrassment. She really knew much lovelier poems.
“How do you find the form?” Alois questioned with a smile of finemelancholy. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the effect he hadproduced.
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“Long and round. You yourself said so in the poem.”
“I mean the artistic form, the form of my verse.”
“Oh—oh, yes. Yes, I thought it was very good.”
“It is, isn’t it!” cried Alois. “What you mean to say is thatMan’s Finger may be ranked among the best poems you know of, andone must go way back in literature before one comes across anything likeit. The prime requisite in art is that it should contain something new,which is what most poets forget. And bigness, too. Don’t you agreewithme?”
“Certainly,” said Maya, “I think....”
“The firm belief you express in my importance as a poet reallyoverwhelms me. Ithank you.—But I must be going now, forsolitude is the poet’s pride. Farewell.”
“Farewell,” echoed Maya, who really didn’t know just what the littlefellow had been after.
“Well,” she thought, “he knows. Perhaps he’s not full grownyet; he certainly isn’t large.” She looked after him, as he hastened171up the branch. His wee legs were scarcely visible; he looked as thoughhe were moving on low rollers.
Maya turned her gaze away, back to the golden field of grain overwhich the butterflies were playing. The field and the butterflies gaveher ever so much more pleasure than the poetry of Alois, ladybird andpoet.
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CHAPTER XIII
THE FORTRESS
Howhappily the day had begun and how miserably it was to end!
Before the horror swept upon her, Maya had formed a very remarkableacquaintance. It was in the afternoon near a big old water-butt. She wassitting amid the scented elder blossoms, which lay mirrored in theplacid dark surface of the butt, and a robin redbreast was warblingoverhead, so sweetly and merrily that Maya thought it was a shame,acrying shame that she, abee, could not make friends withthe charming songsters. The trouble was, they were too big and ateyouup.
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She had hidden herself in the heart of the elder blossoms and waslistening and blinking under the pointed darts of the sunlight, when sheheard someone beside her sigh. Turning round she saw—well, now itreally was the strangest of all the strange creatures she hadever met. It must have had at least a hundred legs along each side ofits body—so she thought at first glance. It was about three timesher size, and slim, low, and wingless.
“For goodness sake! Mercy on me!” Maya was quite startled. “You mustcertainly be able to run!”
The stranger gave her a pondering look.
“I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt it. There’s room for improvement.Ihave too many legs. You see, before all my legs can be set inmotion, too much time is lost. Ididn’t use to realize this, andoften wished I had a few more legs. But God’s will be done.—Whoare you?”
Maya introduced herself. The other one nodded and moved some of hislegs.
“I am Thomas of the family of . We are an old race, and we arouseadmiration and astonishment in all parts of the globe. No174other animals can boast anything like our number of legs. Eight istheir limit, so far as I know.”
“You are tremendously interesting. And your color is so queer. Haveyou got a family?”
“Why, no! Why should I? What good would a family do me? We millepedscrawl out of our eggs; that’s all. If we can’t stand on our ownfeet, who should?”
“Of course, of course,” Maya observed thoughtfully. “But have you norelations?”
“No, dear child. I earn my living, and doubt. I doubt.”
“Oh! What do you doubt?”
“I was born doubting. I must doubt.”
Maya stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. What did he mean, whatcould he possibly mean? She couldn’t for the life of her make out, butshe did not want to pry too curiously into his private affairs.
“For one thing,” said Thomas after a pause, “for one thing I doubtwhether you have chosen a good place to rest in. Don’t you know what’sover there in the big willow?”
“No.”
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“You see! I doubted right away if you knew. The city of the hornetsis over there.”
Maya turned deathly white and nearly fell off the elder blossoms. Ina voice shaking with fright, she asked just where the city was.
“Do you see that old nesting-box for starlings, there in theshrubbery near the trunk of the willow-tree? It’s so poorly placed thatI doubted from the first whether starlings would ever move in. If abird-house isn’t set with its door facing the sunrise, every decent birdwill think twice before taking possession. Well, the hornets haveentrenched themselves in it. It’s the biggest hornets’ fortress in thecountry. You as a bee certainly ought to know of the place. Why, thehornets are brigands who lie in wait for you bees. So, at least,Ihave observed.”
Maya scarcely heard what he was saying. There, showing clear againstthe green, she saw the brown walls of the fortress. She almost stoppedbreathing.
“I must fly away,” she cried.
Too late! Behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. At the same momentthe little176bee felt herself caught by the neck, so violently that she thought herjoints were broken. It was a laugh she would never forget, like a viletaunt out of hellish darkness. Mingling with it was another gruesomesound, the awful clanking of armor.
Thomas let go with all his legs at once and tumbled head over heelsthrough the branches into the water-butt.
“I doubt if you get away alive,” he called back. But the poor littlebee no longer heard.
She couldn’t see her assailant, her neck was caught in too firm agrip, but a gilt-sheathed arm passed before her eyes, and a huge headwith dreadful pincers suddenly thrust itself above her face. She took itat first to belong to a gigantic wasp, but then realized that she hadfallen into the clutches of a hornet. The black-and-yellow stripedmonster was surely four times her size.
Maya lost sight, hearing, speech; every nerve in her body went faint.At length her voice came back, and she screamed for help.
“Never mind, girlie,” said the hornet in a honey-sweet tone that wassickening. “Never177mind. It’ll last until it’s over.” He smiled a baleful smile.
“Let go!” cried Maya. “Let me go! Or I’ll sting you in yourheart.”
“In my heart right away? Very brave. But there’s time for thatlater.”
Maya went into a fury. Summoning all her strength, she twistedherself around, uttered her shrill battle-cry, and directed her stingagainst the middle of the hornet’s breast. To her amazement and horror,the sting, instead of piercing his breast, swerved on the surface. Thebrigand’s armor was impervious.
Wrath gleamed in his eyes.
“I could bite your head off, little one, to punish you for yourimpudence. And I would, too, Iwould indeed, but for our queen. Sheprefers fresh bees to dead carcasses. So a good soldier saves a juicymorsel like you to bring to her alive.”
The hornet, with Maya still in his grip, rose into the air and madedirectly for the fortress.
“This is too awful,” thought the poor little bee. “No one can standthis.” She fainted.
When she came to her senses, she found herself178in half darkness, in a sultry dusk permeated by a horrid, pungent smell.Slowly everything came back to her. Agreat paralyzing sadnesssettled in her heart. She wanted to cry: the tears refused to come.
“I haven’t been eaten up yet, but I may be, any moment,” she thoughtin a tremble.
Through the walls of her prison she caught the distinct sound ofvoices, and soon she noticed that a little light filtered through anarrow chink. The hornets make their walls, not of wax like the bees,but of a dry mass resembling porous grey paper. By the one thread oflight she managed bit by bit to make out her surroundings. Horror ofhorrors! Maya was almost congealed with fright: the floor was strewnwith the bodies of dead insects. At her very feet lay a littlerose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of alarge locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains ofslaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths.
“Oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me,” whimpered little Maya.She did not dare to stir the fraction of an inch and pressed herself179shivering into the farthest corner of this chamber of horrors.
Again she heard voices on the other side of the wall. Impelled bymortal fear, she crept up to the chink and peeped through. What she sawwas a vast hall crowded with hornets and magnificently illuminated by anumber of captive glow-worms. Enthroned in their midst sat the queen,who seemed to be holding an important council. Maya caught every wordthat was said.
If those glittering monsters had not inspired her with suchunspeakable horror, she would have gone into raptures over theirstrength and magnificence. It was the first time she had had a good viewof any of the race of brigands. Tigers they looked like, superb tigersof the insect world, with their tawny black-barred bodies. Ashiverof awe ran through the little bee.
A sergeant-at-arms went about the walls of the hall ordering theglow-worms to give all the light they could; they must strain themselvesto the utmost. He muttered his commands in a low voice, so as not tointerrupt180the deliberations, and thrust at them with a long spear, hissing as hedidso:
“Light up, or I’ll eat you!”
Terrible the things that were done in the fortress of thehornets!
Then Maya heard the queen say:
“Very well, we shall abide by the arrangements we have made.To-morrow, one hour before dawn, the warriors will assemble and sallyforth to the attack on the city of the bees in the castle park. The hiveis to be plundered and as many prisoners taken as possible. He whocaptures Queen Helen VIII and brings her to me alive will be dubbed aknight. Go forth and be brave and victorious and bring back richbooty.—The meeting is herewith adjourned. Sleep well, my warriors.Ibid you good-night.”
The queen-hornet rose from her throne and left the hall accompaniedby her body-guard.
Maya nearly cried out loud.
“My country!” she sobbed, “my bees, my dear, dear bees!” She pressedher hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She was in thedepths of despair. “Oh, would181that I had died before I heard this. No one will warn my people. Theywill be attacked in their sleep and massacred. OGod, perform amiracle, help me, help me and my people. Our need is great!”
In the hall the glow-worms were put out and devoured. Gradually thefortress was wrapped in a hush. Maya seemed to have been forgotten.Afaint twilight crept into her cell, and she thought she caughtthe strumming of the crickets’ night song outside.—Was anythingmore horrible than this dungeon with its carcasses strewn on theground!
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CHAPTER XIV
THE SENTINEL
Soon,however, the little bee’s despair yielded to a definite resolve. It wasas though she once more called to mind that she was a bee.
“Here I am weeping and wailing,” she thought, “as if I had no brainsand as if I were a weakling. Oh, I’m not much of an honor to my peopleand my queen. They are in danger. Iam doomed anyhow. So sincedeath is certain one way or another, Imay as well be proud andbrave and do everything I can to try to save them.”
It was as though Maya had completely forgotten the long time that hadpassed since she183left her home. More strongly than ever she felt herself one of herpeople; and the great responsibility that suddenly devolved upon her,through the knowledge of the hornets’ plot, filled her with fine courageand determination.
“If my people are to be vanquished and killed, I want to be killed,too. But first I must do everything in my power to save them.”
“Long live my queen!” she cried.
“Quiet in there!” clanged harshly from the outside.
Ugh, what an awful voice!—The watchman making hisrounds.—Then it was already late in the night.
As soon as the watchman’s footsteps had died away, Maya began towiden the chink through which she had peeped into the hall. It was easyto bite away the brittle stuff of the partition, though it took sometime before the opening was large enough to admit her body. At length,in the full knowledge that discovery would cost her her life, shesqueezed through into the hall. From remote depths184of the fortress echoed the sound of loud snoring.
The hall lay in a subdued blue light that found its way in throughthe distant entrance.
“The moonlight!” Maya said to herself. She began to creep cautiouslytoward the exit, cowering close in the deep shadows of the walls, untilshe reached the high, narrow passageway that led from the hall to theopening through which the light shone. She heaved a deep sigh. Far, faraway glimmered a star.
“Liberty!” she thought.
The passageway was quite bright. Softly, stepping oh so very softly,Maya crept on. The portal came nearer and nearer.
“If I fly now,” she thought, “I’ll be out in one dash.” Her heartpounded as if ready to burst.
But there in the shadow of the doorway stood a sentinel leaningagainst a column.
Maya stood still, rooted to the spot. Vanished all her hopes. Gonethe chance of escape. There was no getting by that formidable185figure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. Butthe sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed tobe lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape,his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How hisgolden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stoodthere stirred the little bee’s emotions.
“He looks so sad,” she thought. “How handsome he is, how superbly heholds himself, how proudly his armor shines! He never removes it,neither by day nor by night. He is always ready to rob and fight anddie....”
Little Maya quite forgot that this man was her enemy. Ah, how oftenthe same thing had happened to her—that the goodness of her heartand her delight in beauty made her lose all sense of danger.
A golden dart of light shot from the bandit’s helmet. He must haveturned his head.
“My God,” whispered Maya, “this is the end of me!”
But the sentinel said quietly:
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“Just come here, child.”
“What!” cried Maya. “You saw me?”
“All the time, child. You bit a hole through the wall, then you creptalong—crept along—tucking yourself very neatly into the darkplaces—until you reached the spot where you’re standing. Then yousaw me, and you lost heart. Am I right?”
“Yes,” said Maya, “quite right.” Her whole body shook with terror.The sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. She remembered havingheard how keen were the senses of these clever freebooters.
“What are you doing here?” he asked good-humoredly.
Maya still thought he looked sad. His mind seemed to be far away andnot to concern itself with what was of such moment to her.
“I’d like to get out,” she answered. “And I’m not afraid. Iwasjust startled. You looked so strong and handsome, and your armor shoneso. Now I’ll fight you.”
The sentinel, slightly astonished, leaned forward, and looked at Mayaand smiled. It187was not an ugly smile, and Maya experienced an entirely new feeling: theyoung warrior’s smile seemed to exercise a mysterious power over herheart.
“No, little one,” he said almost tenderly, “you and I won’t fight.You bees belong to a powerful nation, but man for man we hornets arestronger. To do single battle with a bee would be beneath our dignity.If you like you may stay here a little while and chat. But only a littlewhile. Soon I’ll have to wake the soldiers up; then, back to your cellyou mustgo.”
How curious! The hornet’s lofty friendliness disarmed Maya more thananger or hate could have done. The feeling with which he inspired herwas almost admiration. With great sad eyes she looked up at her enemy,and constrained, as always, to follow the impulses of her heart, shesaid:
“I have always heard bad things about hornets. But you are not bad.Ican’t believe you’re bad.”
The warrior looked at Maya.
“There are good people and bad people188everywhere,” he said, gravely. “But you mustn’t forget we are yourenemies, and shall always remain your enemies.”
“Must an enemy always be bad?” asked Maya. “Before, when you werelooking out into the moonlight, Iforgot that you were hard anddangerous. You seemed sad, and I have always thought that people whowere sad couldn’t possibly be wicked.”
The sentinel said nothing, and Maya continued more boldly:
“You are powerful. If you want to, you can put me back in my cell,and I’ll have to die. But you can also set me free—if youwantto.”
At this the warrior drew himself up. His armor clanked, and the armhe raised shone in the moonlight.
But the moonlight was turning dimmer in the passageway. Was dawncoming already?
“You are right,” he said. “I can. My people and my queen haveentrusted me with this power. My orders are that no bee who has189set foot in this fortress shall leave it alive. Ishall keep faithwith my people.”
After a pause he added softly as if to himself: “I have learned bybitter experience how faithlessness can hurt—when Loveydearforsookme....”
Little Maya was overcome. She did not know what to say. Ah, the samesentiments moved her, too—love of her own kind, loyalty to herpeople. Nothing to be done here but to use force or strategy. Each didhis duty, and yet each remained an enemy to the other.
But hadn’t the sentinel mentioned a name? Hadn’t he said somethingabout someone’s having been unfaithful to him? Loveydear—why, sheknew Loveydear—the beautiful dragon-fly who lived at the lakesideamong the waterlilies.
Maya quivered with excitement. Here, perhaps, was her salvation. Butshe wasn’t quite sure how much good her knowledge would be to her. Soshe said prudently:
“Who is Loveydear, if I may ask?”
“Never mind, little one. She’s not your affair,190and she’s lost to me forever. Ishall never find her again.”
“I know Miss Loveydear.” Maya forced herself to put the utmostindifference into her tone. “She belongs to the family of dragon-fliesand she’s the loveliest lady of all.”
A tremendous change came over the warrior. He seemed to haveforgotten where he was. He leapt over to Maya’s sides as if blown by aviolent gust.
“What! You know Loveydear? Tell me where she is. Tell me, rightaway.”
“No.”
Maya spoke quietly and firmly; she glowed with secret delight.
“I’ll bite your head off if you don’t tell.” The warrior drewdangerously close.
“It will be bitten off anyhow. Go ahead. I shan’t betray the lovelydragon-fly. She’s a close friend of mine.... You want to imprisonher.”
The warrior breathed hard. In the gathering dawn Maya could see thathis forehead191was pale and his eyes tragic with the inner struggle he was waging.
“Good God!” he said wildly. “It’s time to rouse thesoldiers.—No, no, little bee, Idon’t want to harm Loveydear.Ilove her, more dearly than my life. Tell me where I shall findher again.”
Maya was clever. She purposely hesitated before she said:
“But I love my life.”
“If you tell me where Loveydear lives”—Maya could see that thesentinel spoke with difficulty and was trembling all overI’ll set youfree. You can fly wherever you want.”
“Will you keep your word?”
“My word of honor as a brigand,” said the sentinel proudly.
Maya could scarcely speak. But, if she was to be in time to warn herpeople of the attack, every moment counted. Her heart exulted.
“Very well,” she said, “I believe you. Listen, then. Do you know theancient linden-trees near the castle? Beyond them lies one meadow afteranother, and finally comes a big192lake. In a cove at the south end where the brook empties into the lakethe waterlilies lie spread out on the water in the sunlight. Near them,in the rushes, is where Loveydear lives. You’ll find her there every dayat noon when the sun is high in the heavens.”
The warrior had pressed both hands to his pale brow. He seemed to behaving a desperate struggle with himself.
“You’re telling the truth,” he said softly and groaned, whether fromjoy or pain it was impossible to tell. “She told me she wanted to gowhere there were floating white flowers. Those must be the flowers youspeak of. Fly away, then. Ithank you.”
And actually he stepped aside from the entrance.
Day was breaking.
“A brigand keeps his word,” he said.
Not knowing that Maya had overheard the deliberations in the councilchamber, he told himself that one small bee more or less made littledifference. Weren’t there hundreds of others?
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“Good-by,” cried Maya, breathless with haste, and flew off without aword of thanks.
As a matter of fact, there was no time to spare.
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CHAPTER XV
THE WARNING
LittleMaya summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. Like abullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than mostinsects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beelinefor the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and couldhide herself away should the hornet regret having let her go and followin pursuit.
Gossamer veils hung everywhere over the level country, big drops fellfrom the trees on the dry leaves carpeting the ground, and the cold inthe woods threatened to paralyze little Maya’s wings. No ray of the dawnhad as195yet found its way between the trees. The air was as hushed as if the sunhad forgotten the earth, and all creatures had laid themselves toeternal rest.
Maya, therefore, flew high up in the air. Only one thingmattered—to get back as quickly as strength and wits permitted toher hive, her people, her endangered home. She must warn her people.They must prepare against the attack which the terrible brigands hadplanned for that very morning. Oh, if only the nation of bees had thechance to arm and make ready its defenses, it was well able to cope withits stronger opponents. But a surprise assault at rising time! What ifthe queen and the soldiers were still asleep? The success of the hornetswould then be assured. They would take prisoners and give no quarter.The butchery would be horrible.
Thinking of the strength and energy of her people, their readiness tomeet death, their devotion to their queen, the little bee felt a greatwrath against their enemies the hornets. Her beloved people! Nosacrifice was too great for them. Little Maya’s heart swelled with196the ecstasy of self-sacrifice and the dauntless courage ofenthusiasm.
It was not easy for her to find her way over the woods. Long beforeshe had ceased to observe landmarks as did the other bees, who had greatdistances to come back with their loads of nectar. She felt she hadnever flown as high before, the cold hurt, and she could scarcelydistinguish the objects below.
“What can I go by?” she thought. “No one thing stands out.Ishan’t be able to reach my people and help them. Oh, oh! And hereI had a chance to atone for my desertion. What shall I do? What shall Ido?”—Suddenly some secret force steered her in a certaindirection. “What is pushing and pulling me? It must behomesickness guiding me back to my country.” She gave herself up to theinstinct and flew swiftly on. Soon, in the distance, looking like greydomes in the dim light of the dawn, showed the mighty lindens of thecastle park. She exclaimed with delight. She knew where she was. Shedropped closer to the earth. In the meadows on one side hung theluminous wisps of fog, thicker here than in the197woods. She thought of the flower-sprites who cheerfully died their earlydeath inside the floating veils. That inspired her anew with confidence.Her anxiety disappeared. Let her people spurn her from the kingdom, letthe queen punish her for desertion, if only the bees were spared thisdreadful calamity of the hornets’ invasion.
Close to the long stone wall shone the silver-fir that shielded thebee-city against the west wind. And there—she could see themdistinctly now—were the red, blue, and green portals of herhomeland. The stormy pounding of her heart nearly robbed her of herbreath. But on she flew toward the red entrance which led to her peopleand her queen.
On the flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laidhands upon her. Maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and thesentinels threatened to kill her. For a bee to force its way into astrange city without the queen’s consent is a capital offense.
“Stand back!” cried one sentinel, thrusting her roughly away. “What’sthe matter with you! If you don’t leave this instant, you’lldie.—Did198you ever!” He turned to the other sentinel. “Have you ever seen thelike, and before daytime too?”
Now Maya pronounced the password by which all the bees knew oneanother. The sentinels instantly released her.
“What!” they cried. “You are one of us, and we don’t know you?”
“Let me get to the queen,” groaned the little bee. “Right away,quick! We are in terrible danger.”
The sentinels still hesitated. They couldn’t grasp the situation.
“The queen may not be awakened before sunrise,” said the one.
“Then,” Maya screamed, her voice rising to a passionate yell such asthe sentinels had probably never heard from a bee before, “then thequeen will never wake up alive. Death is following at my heels. Take meto the queen! Take me to the queen, Isay!” Her voice was so wildand wrathful that the sentinels were frightened, and obeyed.
The three hurried together through the warm, well-known streets andcorridors.199Maya recognized everything, and for all her excitement and thetremendous need for haste, her heart quivered with sweet melancholy atthe sight of the dear familiar scenes.
“I am at home,” she stammered with pale lips.
In the queen’s reception room she almost broke down. One of thesentinels supported her while the other hurried with the unusual messageinto the private chambers. Both of them now realized that somethingmomentous was taking place, and the messenger ran as fast as his legswould carry him.
The first wax-generators were already up. Here and there a littlehead thrust itself out curiously from the openings. The news of theincident traveled quickly.
Two officers emerged from the private chambers. Maya recognized theminstantly. In solemn silence, without a word to her, they took theirposts, one on each side of the doorway: the queen would soon appear.
She came without her court, attended only by her aide and twoladies-in-waiting. She hurried straight over to Maya. When she200saw what a state the child was in, the severe expression on her facerelaxed a little.
The Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and twoladies-in-waiting
“You have come with an important message? Who are you?”
Maya could not speak at once. Finally she managed to frame twowords:
“The hornets!”
The queen turned pale. But her composure was unshaken, and Maya wassomewhat calmed.
“Almighty queen!” she cried. “Forgive me for not respecting theduties I owe Your Majesty. Later I will tell you everything I have done.Irepent. With my whole heart I repent.—Just a little whileago, as by a miracle, Iescaped from the fortress of the hornets,and the last I heard was that they were planning to attack and plunderour kingdom at dawn.”
The wild dismay that the little bee’s words produced wasindescribable. The ladies-in-waiting set up a loud wail, the officers atthe door turned pale and made as if to dash off and sound the alarm, theaide said: “Good God!” and wheeled completely round, because he wantedto see on all sides at once.
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As for the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with whatcomposure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. She drewherself up, and there was something in her attitude that bothintimidated and inspired endless confidence. Little Maya was awed.Never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. It was like agreat, magnificent event in itself.
The queen beckoned the officers to her side and uttered a few rapidsentences aloud. At the end Maya heard:
“I give you one minute for the execution of my orders. A fraction ofa second longer, and it will cost you your heads.”
But the officers scarcely looked as if they needed this incentive. Inless time than it takes to tell they were gone. Their instant readinesswas a joy to behold.
“O my queen!” said Maya.
The queen inclined her head to the little bee, who once again for abrief moment saw her monarch’s countenance beam upon her gently,lovingly.
“You have our thanks,” she said. “You have202saved us. No matter what your previous conduct may have been, you havemade up for it a thousandfold.—But go, rest now, little girl, youlook very miserable, and your hands are trembling.”
“I should like to die for you,” Maya stammered, quivering.
“Don’t worry about us,” replied the queen. “Among the thousandsinhabiting this city there is not one who would hesitate a moment tosacrifice his life for me and for the welfare of the country. You can goto sleep peacefully.”
She bent over and kissed the little bee on her forehead. Then shebeckoned to the ladies-in-waiting and bade them see to Maya’s rest andcomfort.
Maya, stirred to the depths of her being, allowed herself to be ledaway. After this, life had nothing lovelier to offer. As in a dream sheheard the loud, clear signals in the distance, saw the high dignitariesof state assemble around the royal chambers, heard a dull, far-echoingdrone that shook the hive from roof to foundation.
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“The soldiers! Our soldiers!” whispered the ladies-in-waiting at herside.
The last thing Maya heard in the little room where her companions puther to bed was the tramp of soldiers marching past her door and commandsshouted in a blithe, resolute, ringing voice. Into her dreams, echoingas from a great distance, she carried the ancient song of thesoldier-bees:
Sunlight, sunlight, golden sheen,
By your glow our lives are lighted;
Bless our labors, bless our Queen,
Let us always be united.
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CHAPTER XVI
THE BATTLE
Thekingdom of the bees was in a whirl of excitement. Not even in the daysof the revolution had the turmoil been so great. The hive rumbled androared. Every bee was fired by a holy wrath, aburning ardor tomeet and fight the ancient enemy to the very last gasp. Yet there was nodisorder or confusion. Marvelous the speed with which the regiments weremobilized, marvelous the way each soldier knew his duty and fell intohis right place and took up his right work.
It was high time. At the queen’s call for volunteers to defend theentrance, anumber205of bees offered themselves, and of these several had been sent out tosee if the enemy was approaching. Two had now returned—whizzingdots—and reported that the hornets were drawing near.
An awesome hush of expectancy fell upon the hive. Soldiers in threeclosed ranks stood lined up at the entrance, proud, pale, solemn,composed. No one spoke. The silence of death prevailed, except for thelow commands of the officers drawing up the reserves in the rear. Thehive seemed to be fast asleep. The only stir came from the doorway whereabout a dozen wax-generators were at work in feverish silence theirorders to narrow the entrance with wax. As by a miracle, two thickpartitions of wax had already gone up, which even the strongest hornetscould not batter down without great loss of time. The hole had beenreduced by almost half.
The queen took up an elevated position inside the hive from which shewas able to survey the battle. Her aides flew scurrying hither andthither.
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The third messenger returned. He sank down exhausted at the queen’sfeet.
“I am the last who will return,” he shouted with all the strength hehad left. “The others have been killed.”
“Where are the hornets?” asked the queen.
“At the lindens!—Listen, listen,” he stammered in mortalterror, “the air hums with the wings of the giants.”
No sound was heard. It must have been the poor fellow’s terrifiedimagination, he must have thought he was still being pursued.
“How many are there?” asked the queen sternly. “Answer in a lowvoice.”
“I counted forty.”
Although the queen was startled by the enemy’s numbers, she gave nosign of shock.
In a ringing, confident voice that all could hear, she said:
“Not one of them will see his home again.”
Her words, which seemed to sound the enemy’s doom, had instanteffect. Men and officers alike felt their courage rise.
But when in the quiet of the morning an ominous whirring was heardoutside the hive,207first softly, then louder and louder, and the entrance darkened, and thewhispering voices of the hornets, the most frightful robbers andmurderers in the insect world, penetrated into the hive, then the facesof the valiant little bees turned pale as if washed over by a drab lightfalling upon their ranks. They gazed at one another with eyes in whichdeath sat waiting, and those who were ranged at the entrance knew fullwell that one moment more and all would be over with them.
The queen’s controlled voice came clear and tranquil from her placeon high:
“Let the robbers enter one by one until I give orders to attack. Thenthose at the front throw themselves upon the invaders a hundred at atime, and the ranks behind cover the entrance. In that way we shalldivide up the enemy’s forces. Remember, you at the front, upon yourstrength and endurance and bravery depends the fate of the whole state.Have no fear; in the dusk the enemy will not see right away how wellprepared we are, and he will enter unsuspecting....”
She broke off. There, thrust through the208doorway, was the head of the first brigand. The feelers played about,groping, cautious, the pincers opened and closed. It was ablood-curdling sight. Slowly the huge black-and-gold striped body withits strong wings crept in after the head. The light falling in from theoutside drew gleams from the warrior’s cuirass.
Something like a quiver went through the ranks of the bees, but thesilence remained unbroken.
The hornet withdrew quietly. Outside he could be heardannouncing:
“They’re fast asleep. But the entrance is half walled up and thereare no sentinels. Ido not know whether to take this as a good or abad sign.”
“A good sign!” rang out. “Forward!”
At that two giants leapt in through the entrance side by side; afterthem, soundlessly, pressed a throng of striped, armed, gleamingwarriors, awful to behold. Eight made their way into the hive. Still noorders to attack from the queen. Was she dumb with horror, had her voicefailed her?
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And the brigands, did they not see in the shadow, to right and left,the soldiers drawn up in close, glittering ranks ready for mortalcombat...?
Now at last came the order from on high:
“In the name of eternal right, in the name of your queen, to thedefense of the realm!”
At that a droning roar went up. Never before had the city been shakenby such a battle-cry. It threatened to burst the hive in two. Where, aninstant before, the hornets had been visible singly, there were nowbuzzing heaps, thick, dark, rolling knots. Ayoung officer hadscarcely awaited the end of the queen’s words. He wanted to be the firstto attack. He was the first to die. He had stood for some time ready toleap all a-quiver with eagerness for battle, and at the first sound ofthe order he rushed forward right into the clutches of the foremostbrigand. His delicately fine-pointed sting found its way between thehead and upper breast-ring of his opponent; he heard the hornet give ayell of rage, saw him double up into a glittering, gold-black ball. Thenthe bandit’s fearful sting leapt out and pierced210between the young officer’s breast-rings right into his heart; and dyingthe bee felt himself and his mortally wounded enemy sink under a cloudof storming bees. His brave death inspired them all with the wildrapture that comes from utter willingness to die for a noble cause.Fearful was their attack upon the invaders. The hornets were sorepressed.
But the hornets are an old race of robbers, trained to warfare.Pillage and murder have long been their gruesome profession. Though theinitial assault of the bees had confused and divided them, yet thedamage was not so great as might have seemed at first. For the bees’stings did not penetrate their breastplates, and their strength andgigantic size gave them an advantage of which they were well aware.Their sharp, buzzing battle-cry rose high above the battle-cry of thebees. It is a sound that fills all creatures with horror, even humanbeings, who dread this danger signal, and are careful not to enter intoconflict with hornets unprotected.
Those of the assailants who had already penetrated into the hivequickly realized that211they must make their way still deeper inward if they were not to blockup the entrance to their comrades outside. And so the struggling knotsrolled farther and farther down the dark streets and corridors. Howright the queen had been in her tactics! No sooner was a bit of space atthe entrance cleared than the ranks in the rear leapt forward to itsdefense. It was an old strategy, and a dreadful one for the enemy. Whena hornet at the entrance gave signs of exhaustion, the bees shammed thesame, and let him crawl in; but the instant the one behind showed hishead a great swarm of fresh soldiers dashed up to defend the apparentlyunprotected entrance, while the invader who had gone on ahead would findhimself, already wearied, suddenly confronted by glittering ranks ofsoldier-bees who had not yet stirred a finger in battle. Generally hesuccumbed to their superior numbers at the very first attack.
Now the groans of the wounded and the shrieks of the dying mingled inwild agony with the fierce battle-cries. The hornets’ stings workedfearful havoc among the bees.212The rolling knots left tracks of dead bodies in their wake. The hornets,whose retreat had been cut off, realizing that they would never see thelight of day again, fought the fight of despair. Yet, slowly, one byone, they succumbed. There was one great thing against them. Thoughtheir strength was inexhaustible, not so the poison of their sting.After a time their sting lost its virulence, and the wounded bees,knowing they’d recover, fought in the consciousness of certain victory.To this was added the grief of the bees for their dead; it gave them thepower of divine wrath.
Gradually the din subsided. The loud calls of the hornets on theoutside met with no response from the invaders within.
“They are all dead,” said the leader of the hornets grimly, andsummoned the combatants back from the entrance. Their numbers had melteddown to half.
“We have been betrayed,” said the leader. “The bees wereprepared.”
The hornets were assembled on the silver-fir. It had grown lighter,and the red of dawn213tinged the tops of the linden-trees. The birds began to sing. The dewfell. Pale and quivering with rage of battle, the warriors stood aroundtheir leader, who was waging an awful inward struggle. Should he yieldto prudence or to his lust for pillage? The former prevailed. There wasno use anyway. His whole tribe was in danger of destruction. Grudgingly,in a shudder of thwarted ambition, he determined to send a messenger tothe bees to sue for the return of the prisoners.
He chose his cleverest officer and called upon him by name.
A depressed silence instead of an answer. The officer was among thosewho had been cut off.
The leader, overcome now by mortal dread lest those who had enteredwould never return, quickly chose another officer. The raging androaring in the beehive could be heard in the distance.
“Be quick!” he cried, laying the white petal of a jasmine in themessenger’s hand, “or the human beings will soon come and we shall belost. Tell the bees we will go away and leave214them in peace forever if they will deliver up the prisoners.”
The messenger rushed off. At the entrance he waved his white signaland alighted on the flying-board.
The queen-bee was immediately informed that an emissary was outsidewho wanted to make terms, and she sent her aide to parley with him. Whenhe returned with his report she sent back this reply:
“We will deliver up the dead if you want to take them away. There areno prisoners. All of your people who invaded our territory are dead.Your promise never to return we do not believe. You may come again,whenever you wish. You will fare no better than you did to-day. And ifyou want to go on with the battle we are ready to fight to the lastbee.”
The leader of the hornets turned pale when this message was deliveredto him. He clenched his fists, he fought with himself. Only too gladlywould he have yielded to the wishes of his warriors who clamored forrevenge. Reason prevailed.
“We will come again,” he hissed. “How215could this thing have happened to us? Are we not a more powerful peoplethan the bees? Every campaign of mine so far has been successful and hasonly added to our glory. How can I face the queen after this defeat?” Ina quiver of fury he cried again: “How could this thing have happened tous? There must be treachery somewhere.”
An older hornet known as a friend of the queen’s here took up theword.
“It is true, we are a more powerful race, but the bees are aunified nation, and unflinchingly loyal to their people and their state.That is a great source of strength; it makes them irresistible. Not oneof them would turn traitor; each without thought of self serves the wealof all.”
The leader scarcely listened.
“My day is coming,” he hissed. “What care I for the wisdom of thesebourgeois! Iam a brigand and will die a brigand.—But to keepup the battle now would be madness. What good would it do us if wedestroyed the whole hive, and none of us came back alive?” Turning tothe messenger, he cried:
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“Give us back our dead. We will withdraw.”
A dead silence fell. The messenger flew off.
“We must be prepared for a fresh piece of trickery, though I don’tthink the hornets are in a fighting mood at present,” said the queen beewhen she heard the hornets’ decision. She gave orders for therear-guard, wax-generators, and honey-carriers to remove the dead fromthe city while two fresh regiments guarded the entrance.
Her orders were carried out. Over mountains of the dead one brigand’sbody after another was dragged to the entrance and thrown to the groundoutside.
In gloomy silence the troop of hornets waited on the silver-fir andsaw the corpses of their fallen warriors drop one by one to theearth.
The sun arose upon a scene of endless desolation. Twenty-one slain,who had died a glorious death, made a heap in the grass under the cityof the bees. Not a drop of honey, not a single prisoner had been takenby the enemy.217The hornets picked up their dead and flew away, the battle was over, thebees had conquered.
But at what a cost! Everywhere lay fallen bodies, in the streets andcorridors, in the dim places before the brooders and honey-cupboards.Sad was the work in the hive on that lovely morning of summer sunshineand scented blossoms. The dead had to be disposed of, the wounded had tobe bandaged and nursed. But before the hour of noon had struck, theregular tasks were begun; for the bees neither celebrated their victorynor spent time mourning their dead. Each bee carried his pride and hisgrief locked quietly in his breast and went about his work.
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CHAPTER XVII
THE QUEEN’S FRIEND
Thenoise of battle awoke Maya out of a brief sleep. She jumped up andstraightway wanted to dash out to help defend the city, but soonrealized that she was too weak to be of any help.
A group of struggling combatants came rolling toward her. One of themwas a strong young hornet, an officer, Maya judged by his badge, who wasdefending himself unaided against an overwhelming number of bees. Thestruggling knot drew nearer. To Maya’s horror it left one dead bee afteranother in its wake. But numbers finally told against the giant: wholeclusters of bees, ready to die219rather than let go, hung to his arms and legs and feelers, and theirstings were beginning to pierce between the rings of his breast. Mayasaw him drop down exhausted. Without cry or complaint, fighting to thevery end, neither suing for mercy nor reviling his opponents, he wentdown to his brigand’s death.
The bees left him and hurried back to the entrance to throwthemselves anew into the conflict.
Maya’s heart was beating stormily. She slipped over to the hornet. Helay curled up in the twilight, still breathing. She counted about twentystings, most of them in the fore part of his body, leaving his goldenarmor quite whole and sound. Seeing he was still alive, she hurried awayto bring water and honey—to cheer the dying man, she thought. Buthe shook his head and waived her off with his hand.
“I take what I want,” he said proudly. “I don’t care forgifts.”
“Oh,” said Maya, “I only thought you might be thirsty.”
The young officer smiled at her, then said, not sadly, but with astrange earnestness:
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“I must die.”
The little bee could not reply. For the first time in her life sheseemed to comprehend what it meant to have to die; and death seemed muchcloser when someone else was about to die than when her own life hadbeen imperiled in the spider’s web.
“If there were only something I could do,” she said, and burstinto tears.
The dying hornet made no answer. He opened his eyes once again andheaved a deep breath—for the last time. Half an hour later he wasthrown down into the grass outside the hive along with his deadcomrades.
Little Maya never forgot what she had learned from this brieffarewell. She knew now for all time that her enemies were beings likeherself, loving life as she did and having to die a hard death withoutsuccor. She thought of the flower sprite who had told her of his rebirthwhen Nature sent forth her blossoms again in the spring; and she longedto know whether the other creatures would, like the sprite, come back tothe light of life after they had died the death of the earth.
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“I will believe it is so,” she said softly.
A messenger now came and summoned her to the queen’s presence. Shefound the full court assembled in the royal reception room. Her legsshook, she scarcely dared to raise her eyes before her monarch and somany dignitaries. Anumber of the officers of the queen’s staffwere missing, and the gathering was unusually solemn. Yet a gleam ofexaltation seemed to light every brow—as if the consciousness oftriumph and new glory won encircled everyone like an invisible halo.
The queen arose, made her way unattended through the assemblage, wentup to little Maya and took her in her arms.
This Maya had never expected, not this. The measure of her joy wasfull to overflowing; she broke down and wept.
The bees were deeply stirred. There was not one among them who didnot share Maya’s happiness, who was not deeply grateful for the littlebee’s valiant deed.
Maya now had to tell her whole story. Everybody wanted to know howshe had learned of the hornets’ plans and how she had222succeeded in breaking out of the awful prison from which no bee had everbefore escaped.
So Maya told of all the remarkable things she had seen and heard, ofMiss Loveydear with the glittering wings, of the grasshopper, of Theklathe spider, of Puck, and of how splendidly Bobbie had come to herrescue. When she told of the sprite and the human beings, it was soquiet in the hall that you could hear the generators in the back of thehive kneading the wax.
“Ah,” said the queen, “who’d have thought the sprites were solovely?” She smiled to herself with a look of melancholy and longing, aspeople will who long for beauty.
And all the dignitaries smiled the same smile.
“How did the song of the sprite go?” she asked. “Say it again. I’dlike to learn it by heart.”
Maya repeated the song of the sprite.
My soul is that which breathes anew
From all of loveliness and grace;
And as it flows from God’s own face,
It flows from his creations, too.
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There was silence for a while. The only sound was a restrainedsobbing in the back of the hall—probably someone thinking of afriend who had been killed.
Maya went on with her story. When she came to the hornets, the bees’eyes darkened and widened. Each imagined himself in the situation inwhich one of their number had been, and quivered, and drew a deepbreath.
“Awful,” said the queen, “perfectly awful....”
The dignitaries murmured something to the same effect.
“And so,” Maya ended, “I reached home. And I sue for your Majesty’spardon—a thousand times.”
Oh, no one bore the little bee any ill will for having run away fromthe hive. You may imagine they did not.
The queen put her arm round Maya’s neck.
“You did not forget your home and your people,” she said kindly. “Inyour heart you were loyal. So we will be loyal to you. Henceforth youshall stay by my side and help me conduct the affairs of state. In thatway,224I think, your experiences, all the things you have learned, will be madeto serve the greatest good of your people and your country.”
Cheers of approval greeted the queen’s words.
So ends the story of the adventures of Maya the bee. They say herwork contributed greatly to the good and welfare of the nation, and shecame to be highly respected and loved by her people. Sometimes on quietevenings she went for a brief hour’s conversation to Cassandra’speaceful little room, where the ancient dame lived now on pension honey.There Maya told the young bees, who listened to her eagerly, stories ofthe adventures which we have lived through with her.
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