her own fortress! Wouldn’t that be discouraging?
“But Xyntli is not discouraged. Not she! She calls up her fiery snakes
from below, and sends them crawling down the sides of the mountain,
while she stands on the top, waving her wonderful smoky veil, and urging
them on.
“Down they glide,—filling up the channels the streams have dug, hissing
with hatred as they swallow the streams themselves, and devouring the
advancing forest.
“At last the mountain stands once more, smooth and polished—the green
army driven back to the valley.
“Then Xyntli is satisfied, and cuddles down in her hollow for another
nap.
“It was during one of these naps—after it had lasted a very long
time—that the Bee Baby was born.
“Year after year, the forest had marched steadily on; so the people who
lived in the valley seldom thought how the snakes had come down and
driven it back in the old days. The very old people occasionally shook
their heads, and said: ‘When Xyntli wakens she will have her own.’ But
the young people didn’t listen, and followed the forest, building their
curious houses fairly upon the slope of the mountain.
“They were very strange houses indeed—a good deal like willow
bird-cages. In a snowstorm they would have been about as useful for a
house as a mosquito net for an overcoat. But there came never a
snowstorm; and the house where the Bee Baby lived was built of slender
branches of trees, set in the ground, side by side, and interwoven with
palm-fibre—the light glimmered through it in little flecks. The roof
went up to a point in the middle and sloped four ways. That was woven
even closer, of the palm leaves, so the rain couldn’t come through. The
house had only one room, and nearly the whole of one side was the
doorway—with the roof extended over it a little way, like an awning.
There was no floor but the earth, and no door. So, when the Bee Baby
woke in the morning, all he had to do was to rub his big brown eyes with
his little brown fists, and trot through the open doorway, to be in the
warm sunshine, where there wasn’t a fence nor a bar between him and the
whole enchanting world.
“There was no one to watch him very closely, either, because he had no
mother. He did have a father; but he spent a great deal of his time
driving a pair of drowsy oxen in a cart with two solid, wooden wheels.
Such a queer cart!
“Of course his father knew that one of the brown babies that played and
tumbled about in the village of bird-cage huts was his. But when babies
wear only their own shining skins to cover them, it isn’t easy for a
father who spends most of his time driving an ox-cart to pick out his
particular baby.”
“Not any clothes—didn’t they wear?” asked Pat.
“Most of the little children didn’t. A few of them—who were very
fashionable—wore one garment. It was a straight piece of cloth that
covered their plump little bodies in front; the ends were gathered up in
the back, and tied in a bow between the shoulders. It looked very
stylish—but the Bee Baby was more comfortable. Stand up a minute,
Kitten, and I’ll show you how it was.”
So the Kitten came and stood before her, and she showed them how the
fashionable little children dressed, using a piece of Chinese embroidery
for the straight piece of cloth. Then they settled down once more to
listen.
“If an owl had looked through a chink in the wall, very early one
morning, he might have seen the Bee Baby’s family—his aunts and his
grandmother and four or five brown babies and children—all asleep on
flat straw mats on the ground. But nobody but an owl could have counted
exactly how many there were, it was still so dark.
“Then the first sunbeam slipped in at a chink, and put its finger on one
of the poles in the side of the hut. It felt its way slowly down, until
it touched a small, dark heap at the foot of it.
“And that was the Bee Baby.
“He sat up on his mat and looked around him at the other heaps.
“Not one of them stirred; and that was pretty stupid.
“Then he saw something interesting; his own little foot with the sunbeam
resting on it, as he sat with his toes pointing straight up at the roof.
He looked at it for a moment, and frowned as if he were anxious. Then he
leaned forward and felt of it.
“It was a perfectly good foot; and feet are made to be walked on; and it
is much more amusing to be walking than sitting on a mat in a dusky hut
like a bird-cage. That, probably, is the idea that came into the Bee
Baby’s head when he found his foot was so satisfactory; and a big dimple
came in his cheek, but he didn’t make any noise.
“To get up, he rolled over on to his face and planted his feet firmly,
only when they were quite solid, lifting his hands from the ground. And
there he was, all dressed and ready to go out. He trotted over to the
doorway and stopped a minute, looking out.
“The hut stood on the edge of a grove of tall cocoanut trees. There were
bananas growing among them; and vines with gorgeous orange and red
flowers creeping everywhere. Black and spotted pigs ran grunting through
the vines and about the huts of the little village; it all looked clean
and fresh in the early sunlight. The Bee Baby’s was the last hut of the
village, at the edge of the grove, that stretched on beyond it, up the
slope of Xyntli’s mountain.
“When one is not much over two years old, one can’t think of everything,
and the Bee Baby didn’t notice that which the older people had been
watching for a month—Xyntli was awake!
“After a sleep of two hundred years—and more—one night she had stirred
and turned herself, shaking her mountain and the village on its slope.
The next morning a thin, gray streamer floated from the top of the cone;
and the old people said: ‘Xyntli’s veil! Oh, when she sees—’ And they
shook their heads.
“Since that day the veil had floated, sometimes like a broad banner,
then again Xyntli drew it in until it was gathered down inside. But yet,
she had not looked out and seen how the forests and streams were
defacing her mountain.
“And the Bee Baby didn’t look up at the great blue triangle. The kitchen
was at the right of the house; and he had a feeling that said:
‘Breakfast.’ So those good little feet carried him over to the big stone
where the women ground corn to make the flat cakes that he liked to
nibble with his brand-new teeth. The stone oven where they were baked
was there too; and the Bee Baby found some cakes lying on the
grinding-stone. He had to stand on his tiptoes and feel over the stone,
to find them; but he knew where to feel, and where to find a banana,
too. So why should he wake the cook?
“With the flat cakes in one hand and the bitten banana in the other, he
set out, following the level sunbeams into the green grove. He knew just
where he wanted to go, and trotted straight on until he came to an old
tree.
“If it had been a _tree_ that he was looking for, it wasn’t much to see.
It hadn’t a green leaf on it, and only a few scraggly branches. But he
was not a bird, nor a squirrel; he was a Bee Baby. And considered as a
beehive, it left nothing to wish for. There was the fine hollow trunk to
store the honey; and a round knot-hole near the ground, for the bees to
pass in and out, all day long, in sunshiny weather. And that funny brown
baby never seemed tired of watching them—hurrying off, and coming back
dusty with pollen, and with masses of it in the pockets on their legs,
or laden with clear, sweet honey. Sometimes a bee lit on his finger.
Then the wise baby sat quite still, and never brushed it off; so he
didn’t find out that it carried a needle in its tail—as sharp as its
temper. (But he was careless about letting the dimple come in his cheek.
It’s a wonder the bees didn’t fly in, it was so deep and red and sweet.)
“When the baby came to the tree this morning, even he could see that
something was different. The bees were not going about the business of
the day—gathering honey—in their usual orderly fashion. No, indeed! They
were running in and out of the knot-hole, helter-skelter; and such a
humming as there was inside the tree!
“He came close to the trunk to listen, and a gray cockatoo sat on a tree
near by and watched. And it’s a pity there was no one else to see what a
quaint little figure he was, with one arm clasping the tree-trunk, as
far as it would go, with a cake still grasped in his chubby hand, and
his ear pressed against the rough bark—listening—listening—
“‘Buzz-z-z-z,’ hummed the bees; and the baby listened, with lips
apart,—serious and wondering.
“Then that soulless cockatoo ‘squawked’ as if it were the funniest thing
in the world, and swung herself, head down, around the branch where she
had been sitting; and then worked her way into the next tree, clutching
the vines with beak or claw, squawking all the way. She had neither
manners nor dignity; and she was a grandmother, too.
“Her noise startled the Bee Baby so he toppled over; but he didn’t mind,
and sat where he fell, to finish his cake and to watch.
“The buzzing in the hive was louder now, and there were very few bees
outside. Then—all at once—they began to come out in numbers, and flew
wildly about before they collected on a low branch near by. You can’t
imagine how many there were—all in a dark cluster clinging to the vine.
The baby never had seen anything like it, and his eyes were round with
amazement. He got up from the hummock, to see more plainly.
“Perhaps because he disturbed them, as he came near, the whole mass rose
together in the air, and flew up a natural path through the forest. And
straight after them went the Baby!
“But it was not a fair race; for they had wings to fly, and several
thousand eyes apiece to see where they were going; and he had only his
two small feet to carry him, and his one pair of eyes to watch the bees.
So he couldn’t look where his feet were going; and the next thing that
happened—he tripped and fell on his nose.
“It didn’t hurt him, and he picked himself up; but the bees were gone,
and he could only follow on in the direction they had flown.
“He was such a baby, it isn’t likely he even remembered what he was
looking for; but there were other things to see beside bees; and a green
forest, with birds and monkeys and all kinds of little living creatures
in it, is a fine place to be in.
“So he strayed on, amusing himself in his baby way, until he had gone
really a considerable distance from the village, and was on a ridge of
high land that ran up the mountain.
“Suddenly, something was the matter with the ground, and try as he
would, he couldn’t stand up on it—it was swaying—and the forest was full
of strange noises; and a black cloud covered the sun so that it grew
dark all in a moment. The great trees groaned and waved their branches,
as if they too were trying to balance themselves on the rocking Earth.
Those that were young and supple held their own; but a few that were old
and dry fell crashing, and carried others down in their fall.
“But though the trees cried and shrieked in their distress and
amazement,—and the monkeys and birds too,—the Bee Baby never made a
sound. He lay pressed close against the ground in the awful darkness; as
chickens cower when the mother hen sees the hawk’s shadow, and sounds
her warning to them.
“He was like a little frightened animal, too, when the rocking stopped,
and the forest gradually grew quiet around him; and he crept along the
ground, through the green tangle, to where a tree had fallen against a
cleft in the rocky ledge, carrying a mass of vines down with it, and
making a sort of den or shelter.
“The brown baby crawled into the farthest corner, and huddled down close
under the rock, to wait helplessly for whatever was to come.”
The Princess paused. “Poor little soul!” said Phyllisy. “Please go on,
Dearie.” And after a moment, she began to speak again:—
“Of course you know—though the Bee Baby didn’t—what was making all this
disturbance; and if he hadn’t left home so early that morning, before
his people were awake, they wouldn’t have forgotten all about him. But
when they were awake, they found enough to think of in watching Xyntli.
“There stood the giant cone of the mountain, with the thin gray streak
of her veil floating from the top.
“It looked very peaceful.
“Suddenly—without further warning—Xyntli stood, straight and tall, in
the top of the mountain, borne up on the servant-winds that live with
her inside!
“Her veil wrapped her from head to foot, and its loose folds were blown
upward by the breath of the winds. Her hair streamed through its topmost
folds like gleaming flames; and the blue flashes that shot forth from
the veil might have been the anger that flared in her blue eyes when she
saw the outside of her mountain!
“Now, for the snakes!
“She gave a strange, wailing cry—like the wind, or flames rushing up the
black throat of the chimney—and down in the depths of the mountain her
fiery serpents came writhing out of their caverns, obedient to her call.
The blue cone and the whole countryside shuddered with their motion; and
as their hot breath scorched the inside of the mountain, thick black
smoke arose like thunderclouds, and blotted out the sun. Then the heads
of the fiery monsters peered over the rim at the mountain’s top, and
they came crawling, gliding down its sides.
“And the very fiercest, hungriest of them all was rushing straight to
the village of bird-cage huts, nestling in the hollow upon the slope of
the mountain!
“It was a splendid sight—the mighty cone, purple in the midday darkness,
with the green forest at its base, and the serpents, like rivers of
fire, pouring down its sides. Smoke and flame rose, streaming upward,
where they passed.
“And in the midst of the murky clouds, on the mountain-top, stood
Xyntli, beautiful exceedingly, in her iridescent, gray veil, with her
glittering, red-gold hair. Swaying lightly on the shoulders of her
servant-winds, waving her arms and crying, she urged on her fiery
snakes, that were to restore her kingdom to her as she would have
it—clean, smooth, unbroken;—the pattern of a perfect mountain!
“But the people in the village saw the terror, not the beauty; and they
thought only of their flight from it.
“They huddled the babies and the old people who couldn’t walk and their
few poor possessions onto the ox-carts. Some of them tried to drive the
spotted pigs before them; and any one who has tried to drive _one_ pig
(a plain one at that) can imagine how much confusion it made when there
were dozens and dozens. And it’s not to be wondered at, that the aunts
and the grandmother didn’t count correctly. So they didn’t miss the Bee
Baby until they were far away; and the body of Xyntli’s hideous snake
lay stretched across the blackened hollow where the little huts had
stood in the green grove.
[Illustration:
THEY THOUGHT ONLY OF THEIR FLIGHT
]
“There is a curious thing about a snake. It has a habit of slipping out
of its skin, and squirming away, leaving the old one behind, looking
quite like itself.
“Xyntli’s snakes were unusual in many ways; but in this they certainly
did something very like the rest of their tribe. When they had gone down
the mountains and filled up the hollows with their bodies, their fiery
hearts seemed to die out of them where they lay. One might think they
were asleep, or dead; but I believe it was only their cast-off skins
they left behind, while the real snakes stole back into the mountain, to
be ready when Xyntli wanted them again.”
“I believe it, too; that’s what they did,” said Pat.
“If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be there always, when she called,” agreed
Phyllisy.
“It seems so to me,” said the Princess. Then she took up the story
again: “At last Xyntli stopped her wild motion and looked down on her
mountain.
“The snakes had done their work well this time. There were no hollows
left, and no green thing but one slender spur of forest, like a finger
pointing up the slope, and that was hardly worth noticing.
“The smoke was thin now, and blue. Xyntli stood, swaying softly on the
mountain-top. Then she sank slowly, drawing her veil after her. Now she
was nearly gone; now, only a gleam of her red hair flickered against the
sky; now—she was quite gone—
“When—suddenly she shot up, straight, towering above the cone, and flung
a long fold of her veil wide over the land; and from it fell a shower of
fine powder, soft as snow, that filled all the cracks and crevices and
covered the horrid bodies of the snakes, and choked every green thing
left in its track.
“Then—as suddenly—Xyntli vanished! and in her hollow mountain, slept
once more.”
The Princess’s voice died away in a hush that lasted a long moment, as
if some one really were sleeping.
Then Pat drew a deep breath: “Well! I should say! For pitysakes! I hope
she’s done mischief enough for once!”
“She didn’t mean it for mischief. She had to make the mountain clean,
didn’t she, Dearie? She couldn’t help it if they were in the way,” said
Miss Phyllisy, with the wise little mind the Princess loved in her,
clear and fair and earnest.
“But she wouldn’t be sorry,” Pat insisted.
“No; she went straight off to sleep,” Phyllisy admitted. “And that poor
little baby!—We’re ready to go on, Dearie, whenever you’re rested.”
And after a few minutes the Princess was ready also.
“There isn’t much that goes on on Mother Earth that the Star People
don’t know about,” she began, whisking them away to Starland without any
warning. “On clear nights, when they are standing still to be looked at,
they watch—and watch. And Old Sol keeps watch by day. So there is not
much that escapes them: certainly not Xyntli and her naps, and
particularly her wakings!
“She was a tantalizing person in this way: though they might look at her
naps—that were nothing to see but a place!—as much and as long as they
liked, no sooner was she fairly awake than the clouds would gather
thick, and the Star People had to seize every chance to look through
chinks. Any one who had a good sight had to tell it over to the others,
again and again. But they did have glimpses, and Sol too; and after it
was all over they could see what had been done. So they had a pretty
clear idea of her and her actions.”
Pat nodded her head, as if she had, too; but she didn’t speak.
“When Xyntli vanished in her mountain the sky was full of heavy clouds;
so when night came the Star People stationed themselves wherever there
seemed the chance for a tiny gap, through which they might look.
“Now, Old Sol dearly loved the Bee Baby; and he had told the Zodiac
People all about the quaint little child who was so happy by himself, in
the sunshine, watching the bees. So the Star People understood just what
Andromeda meant when she exclaimed, from her chink in the cloud:—
“‘The Bee Baby is left all alone by himself in that strip of forest on
the ridge!’
“‘Are you thure? I didn’t thee him,’ said Draco, at another chink.
“‘You’re always imagining things,’ said Orion.
“‘I didn’t imagine this,’ insisted Andromeda. ‘The light from Lady
Moon’s lantern shone through for a moment, and I saw him
plainly—standing in front of a dark hole in the rock. Then he ran back,
as if he were frightened.’
“‘Well, I’d like to know what his people are made of!’ said Cassiopeia.
‘They don’t deserve to have a child, if they can’t take better care of
him than that!’
“‘Maybe they aren’t so bad,’ said Hercules. ‘I don’t believe Xyntli
asked ’em which way they’d rather be chased out. When they saw those
snakes coming they hadn’t any time to go back for stray babies! I don’t
mind snakes, myself, big or little, but I want ’em cold! They are,
too—mostly.’
“‘Too what?’ asked Perseus.
“‘Cold,’ answered Hercules; ‘toads, too.’
“‘I thought you said you’d rather have them cold?’
“‘I would. And they are—mostly.’
“‘Then why did you say they were _too_ cold?’
“‘I didn’t. I want ’em that way. And they are, too.’
“‘But you’—
“‘There’s a conundrum about that,’ interrupted Orion. (He couldn’t stand
it, to have them go on arguing.) ‘I’ve forgotten what it is; but the
answer is: Because a hot snake is better than a cold hop.’
“‘Why! that isn’t it—at _all_!’ said Andromeda.
“‘I should think you were all cold snakes and toads yourselves!’ broke
in Cassiopeia, indignantly. ‘Arguing like that, with that poor child all
alone in the middle of desolation! What do you propose to do about it?’
“‘There isn’t anything we can do,’ said Cepheus. ‘It isn’t our place.’
“‘Xyntli is the one who ought to do something. She made all the
trouble,’ said Andromeda.
“‘Don’t you be so silly,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘This is a serious matter.’
“‘I thouldn’t like her to bring up _my_ child,’ said Draco. ‘The ’th too
exthitable.’
“‘We can decide about yours when you have one!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘Now,
who is going after that baby? Because I think they’d better be
starting.’
“‘What over the sun are you talking about?’ asked Orion. ‘Going where?’
“‘We are going to adopt that Bee Baby. If some one doesn’t start at
once, I shall go myself!’
“‘_Adopt the Bee Baby!_’ cried every one in chorus. They were too much
astounded to say anything original; they could only repeat her
words—though they knew it was rude.
“‘That was what I said,’ said Cassiopeia.
“‘But you can’t,’ said Orion. ‘No one ever thought of doing such a
thing. It isn’t the Rule of the Sky.’
“‘Do you know any Rule that _says_ we can’t?’ asked Cassiopeia.
“‘No,’ answered Orion; and that disposed of him.
“‘How could you take care of him?’ asked Perseus. ‘He’d keep getting
lost; and he mightn’t like it.’
“‘It’s a pity if I can’t take care of one small child, and make him
happy!’ said Cassiopeia. ‘I’ll learn.’
“‘Wouldn’t he just love to watch Sol’s bees!’ said Andromeda. ‘It would
be a good thing to have some one to watch them; there’s always such a
fuss when they swarm.’
“‘Yeth, indeed!’ said Draco. ‘Don’t you remember latht time?—when they
got away when no one wath notithing, and every one thought they were a
comet?’
“‘Yes,’ said Cassiopeia. ‘It might have made a great deal of trouble. I
think we really need him. I’m going now. Is any one coming with me?’
“‘_No!_’ exclaimed Cepheus. ‘I forbid it! I am your husband, Cassiopeia;
and I will be obeyed!’
“Every one looked at him—startled to hear him speak like that. He stood
holding up his sceptre in a magnificent attitude, and looked absolutely
majestic. Cassiopeia was too much astonished to speak for a moment, but
Andromeda slipped her fingers into his and laid her cheek against his
shoulder; and when he bent his head to listen to her pretty coaxing in
his ear, his crown tilted a trifle, and he looked like his usual,
cloudy-night self. So no one was surprised to hear him say:—
“‘Yes, I suppose so. But your mother needn’t go.’
“‘I’ll go,’ said some one who hadn’t spoken before.
“It was Lady Moon.”
(“Oh-h,” said the Others, softly, and very glad; and the Princess smiled
back at them.)
“The moment she spoke, the Star People felt every perplexity smoothed
away, and it all became simple and plain. There wasn’t the slightest
reason in the Heavens, why they should not take that lonely little baby
for their own, to care for and to love.
“The clouds in piled-up masses lay low on Xyntli’s mountain; and it was
an easy matter for the Star People to follow Lady Moon down from level
to level. When they reached the limit of the cloud-stairway, they could
see once more; how right it was that they should wait—their blazing
glory hidden—while Lady Moon, her lantern darkened, should slip unseen
down the bare shoulder of the mountain, to the strip of forest, left
like a dark finger pointing up the slope.
“Ah, but think of a helpless, frightened little child—only two years and
a scrap over—alone in a dark cave in that awful desolation!
“How must he have felt—that little Bee Baby—when, suddenly, a soft light
shone into the cave, and he looked into the face of the loveliest of
ladies, who was holding her lantern so that it disclosed to her—huddled
into the farthest corner of the cave—a small brown heap. Only the eyes,
like a little frightened animal’s, looking out of it, showed that it was
alive.
“And the baby?
[Illustration:
HIS WONDERING EYES LOOKED FROM LADY MOON’S SHOULDER
]
“When he looked into that pitying face, and saw the tender arms held out
to him, his own went out in answer; and then he was held close—nestled
like a young bird or a tired baby—as he was—in the shelter of that
loving breast.
“Then, what baby king had ever such a royal progress as that brown
little child?