[CHAPTER XVII] & [CHAPTER XVIII]
[CHAPTER XVII] The Queen Bee
As they approached they heard a low, humming sound, which grew louder as they advanced and aroused their curiosity.
"What is it?" asked Twinkle, at last.
Ephel answered: "It is the suburb devoted to the bees." "But bees are not birds!" exclaimed Twinkle.
"No; as I have told you, the suburbs contain flying things that cannot be called birds, and so are unable to live in our part of the Paradise. But because they have wings, and love all the flowers and fruits as we do ourselves, we have taken them under our protection." Ephel perched upon a low bush, and when the child-larks had settled beside him he uttered a peculiar, shrill whistle. The humming sound grew louder, then, and presently hundreds of great bees rose above the flower tops and hovered in the air. But none of them approached the bush except one monstrous bumble-bee that had a body striped with black and gold, and this one sailed slowly toward the visitors and alighted gracefully upon a branch in front of them.
The bee was all bristling with fine hairs and was nearly half as big as Twinkle herself; so the girl shrank back in alarm, and cried:
"Oh-h-h! I'm afraid it will sting me!" "How ridiculous!" answered the bee, laughing in a small but merry voice. "Our stings are only for our enemies, and we have no enemies in this Paradise; so we do not use our stingers at all. In fact, I'd almost forgotten I had one, until you spoke." The words were a little mumbled, as if the insect had something in its mouth, but otherwise they were quite easy to understand.
"Permit me to introduce her Majesty the Queen Bee," said their guide. "These, your highness, are some little child-larks who are guests of our King. I have brought them to visit you." "They are very welcome," returned the Queen Bee. "Are you fond of honey?" she asked, turning to the children.
"Sometimes," replied Chubbins; "but we've just eaten, and we're chock full now." "You see," the Queen remarked, "my people are all as busy as bees gathering the honey from every flower." "What do you do with it?" asked Twinkle.
"Oh, we eat part of it, and store up the rest for a rainy day." "Does it ever rain here?" enquired Chubbins.
"Sometimes, at night, when we are all asleep, so as to refresh and moisten the flowers, and help them to grow." "But if it rains at night, there can't be any rainy days," remarked Twinkle; "so I can't see the use of saving your honey." "Nor can I," responded the Queen, laughing again in her pleasant way. "Out in the world people usually rob us of our stores, and so keep us busy getting more. But here there are not even robbers, so that the honey has been accumulating until we hardly know what to do with it. We have built a village of honeycombs, and I have just had my people make me a splendid palace of honey. But it is our way to gather the sweet stuff, whether we need it or not, so we have to act according to our natures. I think of building a mountain of honey next." "I'd like to see that honey palace," said Twinkle. "Then come with me," answered the Queen Bee, "for it will give me pleasure to show it to you." "Shall we go?" asked the girl-lark, turning to Ephel.
"Of course," he returned. "It is quite a wonderful sight, and may interest you." So they all flew away, the Queen Bee taking the lead, and passed directly over the bed of flowers with its swarm of buzzing, busy bees.
"They remind me of a verse from 'Father Goose,'" said Twinkle, looking curiously but half fearfully at the hundreds of big insects. "What is the verse?" asked the Queen.
"Why, it goes this way," answered the girl: "'A bumble-bee was buzzing on a yellow hollyhock When came along a turtle, who at the bee did mock, Saying "Prithee, Mr. Bumble, why make that horrid noise? It's really distracting, and every one annoys." "'"I'm sorry," said, quite humble, the busy droning bee, "The noise is just my bumble, and natural, you see. And if I didn't buzz so I'm sure that you'll agree I'd only be a big fly, and not a bumble-bee."'" "That is quite true," said the bee, "and describes our case exactly. But you should know that we are not named 'bumblebees' by rights, but 'Humble Bees.' The latter is our proper name." "But why 'humble?'" asked Twinkle.
"Because we are common, work-a-day people, I suppose, and not very aristocratic," was the reply. "I've never heard why they changed our name to 'bumble,' but since you recited that verse I imagine it is on account of the noise our wings make." They had now passed over the flower beds and approached a remarkable village, where the houses were all formed of golden-yellow honey-combs. There were many pretty shapes among these houses, and some were large and many stories in height while others were small and had but one story. Some had spires and minarets reaching up into the air, and all were laid out into streets just like a real village.
But in the center stood a great honey-comb building with so many gables and roofs and peaks and towers that it was easy to guess it was the Queen Bee's palace, of which she had spoken. They flew in at a second-story window and found themselves in a big room with a floor as smooth as glass. Yet it was composed of many six-sided cells filled with honey, which could be seen through the transparent covering. The walls and roof were of the same material, and at the end of the room was a throne shaped likewise of the honey cells, like everything else. On a bench along the wall sat several fat and sleepy-looking bumble-bees, who scarcely woke up when their queen entered.
"Those are the drones," she said to her visitors. "It is useless to chide them for their laziness, because they are too stupid to pay attention to even a good scolding. Don't mind them in any way." After examining the beautiful throne-room, they visited the sleeping chambers, of which there were many, and afterward the parlors and dining-room and the work-rooms.
In these last were many bees building the six-sided pockets or cells for storing the honey in, or piling them up in readiness for the return of those who were gathering honey from the flowers.
"We are not really honey-bees," remarked the Queen; "but gathering honey is our chief business, after all, and we manage to find a lot of it." "Won't your houses melt when it rains?" asked Twinkle.
"No, for the comb of the honey is pure wax," the Queen Bee replied. "Water does not melt it at all." "Where do you get all the wax?" Chubbins enquired.
"From the flowers, of course. It grows on the stamens, and is a fine dust called pollen, until we manufacture it into wax. Each of my bees carries two sacks, one in front of him, to put the honey in, and one behind to put the wax in." IN THE HONEY PALACE
"That's funny," said the boy-lark. "I suppose it may be, to you," answered the Queen, "but to us it is a very natural thing." [CHAPTER XVIII] Good News
Ephel and the children now bade the good-natured Queen Bee good-bye, and thanked her for her kindness. The Messenger led them far away to another place that he called a "suburb," and as they emerged from a thick cluster of trees into a second flower garden they found the air filled with a great assemblage of butterflies, they being both large and small in size and colored in almost every conceivable manner. Twinkle and Chubbins had seen many beautiful butterflies, but never such magnificent ones as these, nor so many together at one time. Some of them had wings fully as large as those of the Royal Messenger himself, even when he spread them to their limit, and the markings of these big butterfly wings were more exquisite than those found upon the tail-feathers of the proudest peacocks.
The butterflies paid no attention to their visitors, but continued to flutter aimlessly from flower to flower. Chubbins asked one of them a question, but got no reply.
"Can't they talk?" he enquired of Ephel.
"Yes," said the Messenger, "they all know how to talk, but when they speak they say nothing that is important. They are brainless, silly creatures, for the most part, and are only interesting because they are beautiful to look at. The King likes to watch the flashes of color as they fly about, and so he permits them to live in this place. They are very happy here, in their way, for there is no one to chase them or to stick pins through them when they are caught." Just then a chime of bells tinkled far away in the distance, and the Royal Messenger listened intently and then said:
"It is my summons to his Majesty the King. We must return at once to the palace." So they flew into the air again and proceeded to cross the lovely gardens and pass through the avenues of jewelled trees and the fragrant orchards and groves until they came at last to the royal bower of white flowers.
The child-larks entered with their guide and found the gorgeous King Bird of Paradise still strutting on his perch on the golden bush and enjoying the admiring glances of his courtiers and the ladies of his family. He turned as the children entered and addressed his Messenger, saying:
"Well, my dear Ephel, have you shown the strangers all the sights of our lovely land?" "Most of them, your Majesty," replied Ephel. "What do you think of us now?" asked the King, turning his eyes upon the lark-children.
"It must be the prettiest place in all the world!" cried Twinkle, with real enthusiasm.
His Majesty seemed much pleased. "I am very sorry you cannot live here always," he said. "I'm not," declared Chubbins. "It's too pretty. I'd get tired of it soon." "He means," said Twinkle, hastily, for she feared the blunt remark would displease the kindly King, "that he isn't really a bird, but a boy who has been forced to wear a bird's body. And your Majesty is wise enough to understand that the sort of life you lead in your fairy paradise would be very different from the life that boys generally lead." "Of course," replied the King. "A boy's life must be a dreadful one." "It suits me, all right," said Chubbins. The King looked at him attentively.
"Would you really prefer to resume your old shape, and cease to be a bird?" he asked.
"Yes, if I could," Chubbins replied. "Then I will tell you how to do it," said the King. "Since you told me your strange story I have talked with my Royal Necromancer, who knows a good deal about magic, and especially about that same tuxix who wickedly transformed you in the forest. And the Royal Necromancer tells me that if you can find a tingle-berry, and eat it, you will resume your natural form again. For it is the one antidote in all the world for the charm the tuxix worked upon you." "What is a tingle-berry?" asked Twinkle, anxiously, for this information interested her as much as it did Chubbins.
"I do not know," said the King, "for it is a common forest berry, and never grows in our paradise. But doubtless you will have little trouble in finding the bush of the tingle-berry when you return to the outside world." The children were both eager to go at once and seek the tingle-berry; but they could not be so impolite as to run away just then, for the King announced that he had prepared an entertainment in their honor.
So they sat on a branch of the golden bush beside their friend Ephel, while at a nod from the King a flock of the beautiful Birds of Paradise flew into the bower and proceeded to execute a most delightful and bewildering set of aerial evolutions. They flew swiftly in circles, spirals, triangles, and solid squares, and all the time that they performed sweet music was played by some unseen band. It almost dazzled the eyes of the child-larks to watch this brilliant flashing of the colored wings of the birds, but the evolutions only lasted for a few minutes, and then the birds flew out again in regular ranks.
Then the little brown lady-birds danced gracefully upon the carpet, their dainty feet merely touching the tips of the lovely flowers. Afterward the flowers themselves took part, and sang a delightful chorus, and when this was finished the King said they would now indulge in some refreshment.
Instantly a row of bell-shaped blossoms appeared upon the golden bush, one for each bird present, and all were filled with a delicious ice that was as cold and refreshing as if it had just been taken from a freezer. Twinkle and Chubbins asked for spoons, and received them quickly; but the others all ate the ices with their bills.
The King seemed to enjoy his as much as any one, and Twinkle noticed that as fast as a blossom was emptied of its contents it disappeared from the branch.
The child-larks now thanked the beautiful but vain King very earnestly for all his kindness to them, and especially for telling them about the tingle-berries; and when all the good-byes had been exchanged Ephel flew with them back to the tree where they had left the Guardian of the Entrance and their faithful comrade, Policeman Bluejay.
