The Bee Festival was held on the sixteenth day of May; all the court
went. The court-ladies wore green silk scarfs, long green floating
plumes in their bonnets, and green satin petticoats embroidered with
apple-blossoms. The court-gentlemen wore green velvet tunics with
nose-gays in their buttonholes, and green silk hose. Their little
pointed shoes were adorned with knots of flowers instead of buckles.
As for the King himself, he wore a thick wreath of cherry and
peach-blossoms instead of his crown, and carried a white thorn-branch
instead of his scepter. His green velvet robe was trimmed with a
border of blue and white violets instead of ermine. The Queen wore a
garland of violets around her golden head, and the hem of her gown was
thickly sown with primroses.
But the little Princess Rosetta surpassed all the rest. Her little
gown was completely woven of violets and other fine flowers. There was
a very skillful seamstress in the court who knew how to do this kind
of work, although no one except the Princess Rosetta was allowed to
wear a flower-cloth gown to the Bee Festival. She wore also a little
white violet cap, and two of her nurses carried her between them in a
little basket lined with rose and apple-leaves.
All the company, as they danced along, sang, or played on flutes, or
rang little glass and silver bells. Nobody except the King and Queen
rode. They rode cream-colored ponies, with silken ropes wound with
flowers for bridle-reins.
The Bee Festival was held in a beautiful park a mile distant from the
city. The young grass there was green and velvety, and spangled
all over with fallen apple and cherry and peach and plum and pear
blossoms; for the park was set with fruit-trees in even rows. The blue
sky showed between the pink and white branches, and the air was very
sweet and loud with the humming of bees. The trees were all full of
bees. There was something peculiar about the bees of this country;
none of them had stings.
When the court reached the park, they all tinkled their bells in time,
whistled on their flutes, and sang a song which they always sang on
these occasions. Then they played games and enjoyed themselves. They
played hide-and-seek among the trees, and formed rings and danced. The
bees flew around them, and seemed to know them. The little Princess,
lying in her basket, crowed and laughed, and caught at them when they
came humming over her face. Her nurses stood around her, and waved
great fans of peacock-feathers, but that did not frighten the bees at
all.
The court's lunch was spread on a damask-cloth, in an open space
between the trees. There were biscuits of wheaten flour, plates of
honey-comb, and cream in tall glass ewers. That was the regulation
lunch at the Bee Festival. The Bee Festival was nearly as old as the
kingdom, and there was an ancient legend about it, which the Poet
Laureate had put into an epic poem. The King had it in his royal
library, printed in golden letters and bound in old gold plush.
Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the very first
monarch of the royal family of which this king was a member, there
were no bees at all in the kingdom. Not a child in the whole country,
not even the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
tasted a bit of bread and honey.
But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one just across the
river was swarming with them. That kingdom was governed by a king who
was the tenth cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather brooms
on his bank of the river to keep the bees from flying over, and he
would not export a single bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had
been offered immense sums.
However, the inhabitants of this second country were so cruel and
tormenting in their dispositions, and the children so teased the
bees, which were stingless and could not defend themselves, that they
rebelled. They stopped making honey, and one day they swarmed, and
flew in a body across the river in spite of the frantic waving of the
ostrich-feather brooms.
The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful hives to be built
for them, and instituted a national festival in their honor, which
ever since had been observed regularly on the sixteenth day of May.
Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom across the river. Not
one would return to where its ancestors had been so hardly treated;
here everybody was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The present
King had established an order of the "Golden Bee." The Knights of the
Golden Bee wore ribbons studded with golden bees on their breasts, and
their watchword was a sort of a "buzz-z-z," like the humming of a bee.
When they were in full regalia they wore also some curious wings made
of gold wire and lace. The Knights of the Golden Bee comprised the
finest nobles of the court.
In addition to them were the "Bee Guards." They were the King's own
body-guards. Their uniform was white with green cuffs and collar and
facings. On the green were swarms of embroidered bees. They carried a
banner of green silk worked with bees and roses.
So the bee might fairly have been considered the national emblem of
Romalia, for that was the name of the country. The first word which
the children learned to spell in school was "b-e-e, bee," instead of
"b-o-y, boy." The poorest citizen had a bush of roses and a bee-hive
in his yard, and the people were very forlorn who could not have a bit
of honey-comb at least once a day. The court preferred it to any other
food. Indeed it was this particular Queen who was in the kitchen
eating bread and honey, in the song.
[Illustration: A KNIGHT OF THE GOLDEN BEE.]
But to return to the Bee Festival, on this especial sixteenth of May.
At sunset when the bees flew back to their hives for the last time
with their loads of honey, the court also went home. They danced along
in a splendid merry procession. The cream-colored ponies the King and
Queen rode pranced lightly in advance, their slender hoofs keeping
time to the flutes and the bells; and the gallants, leading the ladies
by the tips of their dainty fingers, came after them with gay waltzing
steps. The nurses who carried the Princess Rosetta held their heads
high, and danced along as bravely as the others, waving their
peacock-feather fans in their unoccupied hands. They bore the little
Princess in her basket between them as lightly as a feather. Up and
down she swung. When they first started she laughed and crowed; then
she became very quiet. The nurses thought she was asleep. They had
laid a little satin coverlet over her, and put a soft thick veil over
her face, that the damp evening-air might not give her the croup. The
Princess Rosetta was quite apt to have the croup.
The nurses cast a glance down at the veil and satin coverlet which
were so motionless. "Her Royal Highness is asleep," they whispered to
each other with nods. The nurses were handsome young women, and they
wore white lace caps, and beautiful long darned lace aprons. They
swung the Princess's basket along so easily that finally one of them
remarked upon it.
"How very light her Royal Highness is," said she.
"She weighs absolutely nothing at all," replied the other nurse who
was carrying the Princess, "absolutely nothing at all."
"Well, that is apt to be the case with such high-born infants," said
the first nurse. And they all waved their fans again in time to the
music.
When they reached the palace, the massive doors were thrown open, and
the court passed in. The nurses bore the Princess Rosetta's basket up
the grand marble stair, and carried it into the nursery.
"We will lift her Royal Highness out very carefully, and possibly we
can put her to bed without waking her," said the Head-nurse.
But her Royal Highness's ladies-of-the-bed-chamber who were in waiting
set up such screams of horror at her remark, that it was a wonder that
the Princess did not awake directly.
"O-h!" cried a lady-of-the-bed-chamber, "put her Royal Highness to
bed, in defiance of all etiquette, before the Prima Donna of the court
has sung her lullaby! Preposterous! Lift her out without waking her,
indeed! This nurse should be dismissed from the court!"
"O-h!" cried another lady, tossing her lovely head scornfully, and
giving her silken train an indignant swish; "the idea of putting her
Royal Highness to bed without the silver cup of posset, which I have
here for her!"
"And without taking her rose-water bath!" cried another, who was
dabbling her lily fingers in a little ivory bath filled with
rose-water.
"And without being anointed with this Cream of Lilies!" cried one with
a little ivory jar in her hand.
"And without having every single one of her golden ringlets dressed
with this pomade scented with violets and almonds!" cried one with a
round porcelain box.
"Or even having her curls brushed!" cried a lady as if she were
fainting, and she brandished an ivory hair-brush set with turquoises.
"I suppose," remarked a lady who was very tall and majestic in her
carriage, "that this nurse would not object to her Royal Highness
being put to bed without--her nightgown, even!"
And she held out the Princess's little embroidered nightgown, and
gazed at the Head-nurse with an awful air.
"I beg your pardon humbly, my Ladies," responded the Head-nurse
meekly. Then she bent over the basket to lift out the Princess.
Every one stood listening for her Royal Highness's pitiful scream
when she should awake. The lady with the cup of posset held it in
readiness, and the ladies with the Cream of Lilies, the violet and
almond pomade and the ivory hair-brush looked anxious to begin their
duties. The Prima Donna stood with her song in hand, and the first
court fiddler had his bow raised all ready to play the accompaniment
for her. Writing a fresh lullaby for the Princess every day, and
setting it to music, were among the regular duties of the Poet
Laureate and the first musical composer of the court.
The Head-nurse with her eyes full of tears because of the reproaches
she had received, reached down her arms and attempted to lift the
Princess Rosetta--suddenly she turned very white, and tossed aside the
veil and the satin coverlet. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell
down in a faint.
The ladies stared at one another.
"What is the matter with the Head-nurse?" they asked. Then the second
nurse stepped up to the basket and reached down to clasp the Princess
Rosetta. Then she gave a loud scream, and fell down in a faint.
The third nurse, trembling so she could scarcely stand, came next.
After she had stooped over the basket, she also gave a loud scream and
fainted. Then the fourth nurse stepped up, bent over the basket, and
fainted. So all the Princess Rosetta's nurses lay fainting on the
floor beside her basket.
It was contrary to the rules of etiquette for any one except the
nurses to approach nearer than five yards to her Royal Highness before
she was taken from her basket. So they crowded together at that
distance and craned their necks.
"What can ail the nurses?" they whispered in terrified tones. They
could not go near enough to the basket to see what the trouble was,
and still it seemed very necessary that they should.
"I wish I had a telescope," said the lady with the hair-brush.
But there was none in the room, and it was contrary to the rules of
etiquette for any person to leave it until the Princess was taken from
the basket.
There seemed to be no proper way out of the difficulty. Finally the
first fiddler stood up with an air of resolution, and began unwinding
the green silk sash from his waist. It was eleven yards long. He
doubled it, and launched it at the basket, like a lasso.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS WAS NOT IN THE BASKET!]
"There is nothing in the code of etiquette to prevent the Princess
approaching us before she is taken from her basket," he said bravely.
All the ladies applauded.
He threw the lasso very successfully. It went quite around the basket.
Then he drew it gently over the five yards. They all crowded around,
and looked into it.
_The Princess was not in the basket!_