We awakened about the same time and began to stir about. The first thing
that happened was a new experience—the wax-pickers fell upon me and raked
and scraped me for the tiny bits of wax which now, on account of my
voracious appetite, had begun to grow in each of the rings marking the
under sections of my body. They were so rude that at first I was inclined
to resent their interference, which seemed to be mere meddling. But when
I looked at Crip and saw two busy wax-pickers fumbling over him, I began
to understand that this was part of a routine, and so I stood still until
they had finished.
“They won’t bother with me much longer,” said Crip, sadly. “You see, when
one becomes old the wax grows thinly—so the pickers give over. But you!
They’ll get you. I have noticed that you are rather greedy about eating
honey. This means you’ll get fat and produce lots of wax.”
“Tell me about wax and comb,” I begged of him.
“Comb, my child, is made of wax; this is comb on which you are standing.
It is everywhere about you. The cups that hold our honey and our bread
are made of it. The cell in which you were born is of wax; and, besides,
it is used to stop the holes in our house. Of course there are different
kinds of comb, depending on the use to which it is put. Why, these sheets
of comb with their six-sided cells are wonderful in their economy, in
their plan and symmetry. The cell we build is perfect. No other structure
would serve our purposes, combining such strength and capacity. The cell
is indispensable to the life of the bee!—otherwise he could not exist. So
don’t let me see you make ready to fight the next time the wax-pickers
approach, and they’ll soon be after you again.”
I answered nothing. I was wondering in what far age we had learned to
build the six-sided cell, and in what tiny brain it had been conceived.
They fit so perfectly, I stood quite still marveling at the harmony of
it all and wondering how many things there remained for me to learn. At
every turn I had been confronted with something new. And was it to be so
to the end? What could the end be, of which Crip frequently spoke?
“How old are you?” I asked.
“Two months—glorious with flowers, but ending in disaster.”
“What disaster?”
“Well, you saw the close of it—the death of our colony.”
“Yes, I remember,” I said. But he was so wise I could scarcely believe
that he was but two months old, for he seemed so tattered of wing and
battered of body!
Without thinking what we were about, we drew near the door. Groups of
workers were banked about the entrance, waiting impatiently to be away at
the first streaks of dawn. Presently a note like a bugle-call sounded,
and immediately the face of things was changed. By twos and threes and
fours the workers took wing and scurried into the fields.
A dull gray light lay on the world; the air was damp and moved lazily
out of the east; the dew had fallen thick on the flowers and now began
to twinkle from myriad angles. Crip and I had left the hive at the same
instant, but once on the wing I forgot all about him and flew like mad
this way and that until I caught a whiff of fragrance from an unexplored
meadow, and thither I hastened. Strange and thrilling sensation! I had
not until now felt the joy of dipping into the flowers and searching out
their honey-pots. It was a field of late sunflowers, and all of them
had their faces toward the east, eager to look upon the sun. Joyfully
they waved in the breeze and beckoned to one another as if to say: “Good
morning. How glorious is the sun, our king!” In spite of the dew on their
faces, some of them already were wearing the brand of the hot summer,
which had all but gone and left them beseeching of autumn her tender
graces.
“I am old and frayed,” I heard one say, “and these mornings chill me, but
my work is done. The heart and soul of me are here; I shall not pass; I
shall endure; my seed shall spring up to brighten the world.”
“But I am young,” a tender blossom said, “and I shall be cut off. The
frost will slay me and I shall have rattled down to dust ere my soul has
developed its immortal parts.”
At the moment I was taking honey from its lips, and I felt a quivering as
if its heart fluttered.
“Dear little flower,” I said, “you are living your life; you cannot die;
you will be swallowed up in the universal spirit of things. Your face
has spread a glamour of gold in the world; your honey has nourished a
thousand winged things; your scented breath has floated far and has
carried blessings into silent places. Memory of you will linger; it
will be preserved by the things you have fed, by the things you have
gladdened. And, too, I promise that I shall remember you!”
“How can you remember me,” the flower asked, “when you, too, are doomed?”
“What!” I cried. “Doomed! Why, I am young, I am swift, I am beautiful, I
am glorious!”
“Yes, and so am I. But we pass.”
“You are wise for so young a flower,” spoke up the elder blossom. “Both
of you are of the heavens; both have your lives before you in this tiny
garden, ere you return to the golden fields that spread out toward the
sun. You are immortal.”
Just then I saw one of the petals blow away from the face of the elder
flower. It fluttered and fluttered and finally fell to the earth.
Scarcely had it struck the ground when something with a long, thin body
and active legs seized it and began struggling to draw it through the
grass, intent on some mysterious purpose. I was quite absorbed, and from
my post of vantage on the breast of the floweret I followed the movements
of the thing that tugged at the petal. I had never seen this thing before
and I was wishing for Crip, when, behold! he appeared.
“What are you doing?” he cried at me. “How many loads have you gathered?
What are you staring at?”
He had submerged me with questions. I answered none of them. I had,
indeed, forgotten my work momentarily, so absorbed had I been in the talk
of the flowers.
“Have you a load? Let’s go,” cried he.
I was ready, truly, but I could not refrain from asking him about this
strange animal that pulled the leaf so sedulously through the grass.
“An ant!” Crip answered, rather glumly.
“Do you see what he is about?”
“Yes he is gathering his winter stores. A time comes when he must go
indoors and he must have food even as you and I. Come now, let’s be off.”
I looked down at the ant struggling with his burden and then at the
disheveled flower, casting a last glance at the tender face which had
yielded up honey to me, wondering at the strangeness of it all.
“Come on,” cried Crip, rising on wing.
I did not speak, but followed him. I flew at his heels until he began
to fag a bit and then I came up alongside, careful, however, not to
outdistance him. I soon saw that he had a heavier load than I, and I
felt ashamed, but I knew this had come through my having wasted a few
minutes, and I resolved then and there that the next time I should be
first.
Another thing I noticed, we were flying very low, so near the earth we
almost brushed the tops of the bushes. I asked Crip the reason.
“The wind,” he answered, in better humor than could have been expected.
“Don’t you feel that heavy head current? If you should go up it would
be a hard fight home with these loads. You see, there are currents and
currents,” he went on, “and you must use your wits. Take the current that
blows your way. Profit by whatever nature bestows.”
Almost at once I saw the yard with its white hives, like dots, and
the Master with the Little One and the dog that seemed always with
them. The next moment Crip and I were dropping down to our hive. I was
overjoyed when I fell upon the alighting-board, and could not restrain my
exuberance of feeling. So I bowed my head humbly as best I might with the
load I carried, uttering a hymn of thanksgiving—the very hymn, Crip told
me, that every worker for a million years had uttered on returning to his
hive with his first load of honey. I cannot explain, but some mysterious
force seized me, compelling me to bow my head and to sing. I should
have done it had it cost my life. Such is the law of the hive, just as
there is the law of the jungle. I did not know why I was so happy, but
something bubbled over in me, and the very intoxication of it finally
sent me running madly to deposit my load in a waiting cell, and once more
to take wing for the field of the flowers of the sun.
[Illustration: CHAPTER NINE