Once upon a time, when it was the story age, and things were very
different from what they are now, two tribes of pygmies lived very
near each other.
These tribes of little people looked just alike, they both were very,
very tiny, and they both lived out of doors in the fields. But in one
respect they were quite different. One tribe of little folks spent a
great deal of time gathering food of all kinds from the woods and the
wild orchards, and storing it away for the winter. The other tribe of
little people never harvested or saved at all; they spent all their
time playing.
"Come and have a good time with us; winter is a long way off, and you
are wasting these sunny days," the lazy pygmies would call to the
industrious ones. But the busy pygmies always made the same reply to
their little neighbors,
"It is you who are wasting these days. Winter may be far away, but it
will be cold and barren when it does come. Everything will be covered
deep with snow, and what will we eat if we do not harvest now?"
But the lazy little people danced, and sang, and played on all summer.
"Why should we think of the winter?" they said to one another. "Our
neighbors who are gathering food so busily will probably have a large
enough store for two tribes. They will feed us."
And that is just what happened. When the snow flew, and the lazy
pygmies were almost at the point of starving, their kind little
neighbors brought them pots of wild honey on which they feasted and
grew fat.
Then another summer came. Like all industrious folk, the working
pygmies planned to accomplish more that season than they had the year
before.
"If we move, so as to live nearer the wild flowers, we can gather more
honey," they said. And the whole tribe of industrious little people
went to another field where wild roses and lilies, dripping with
nectar, grew.
At first the lazy pygmies did not even miss their kind little
neighbors. They danced, and sang, and played again through all the
long, bright summer days. When it grew cold, and they had to hide
themselves to escape the frost and had no food, they said,
"What does it matter? Our friends will come back to us soon with
supplies for the winter."
It was too long a journey, though, for the little workers to take
through the snow. The days grew more and more cold, and storms swept
the earth. The lazy little people cried out in their hunger to the
manito, the spirit who watched all outdoors, to come and help them.
So the manito came, but first he went to the industrious tribe of
little folk to reward them.
"You shall have wings," the manito said, "to take you from flower to
flower that you may gather honey with ease. You shall be called honey
bees, and, as you fly, you shall hum so that mortals may hear you and
take pattern from your industry. All your life long, you shall live on
honey."
Then the manito visited the lazy pygmies. "You, too, shall have
wings," he said, "but they shall be to carry you away as mortals drive
you from place to place. You shall have buzzing voices to tell mortals
you are near that they may kill you. Your food shall be only that
which is thrown away. You are the despised flies."
And ever since then the bees have gathered honey, and the flies have
been killed in memory of the day when one tribe of little people was
busy and kind, and the other tribe indolent and selfish.