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diff --git a/22354-h/22354-h.htm b/22354-h/22354-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e44a075 --- /dev/null +++ b/22354-h/22354-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6111 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Adventures of Maya the Bee, by Waldemar Bonsels</title> +<style type = "text/css"> + +body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + +div.poem {margin: .5em 2em;} +div.maintext {font-size: 108%;} /* children's book */ + +a {text-decoration: none;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +hr.page {width: 20%; margin-top: 2.5em; margin-bottom: 2.5em;} +hr.mid {width: 40%;} +hr.micro {width: 10%; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; +font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.5; +margin-top: 0em; margin-bottom: 0em;} + +h1 {font-size: 250%;} +h1.pg {font-size: 190%; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1;} +h2 {font-size: 175%;} +h3 {font-size: 150%;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h4.chapter {margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h4.pg {font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1;} +h5 {font-size: 100%;} +h5.chapter {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: .5em; letter-spacing: .1em;} +h5.chaptitle {font-size: 75%; margin-top: .5em; letter-spacing: .1em;} +h6 {font-size: 85%;} + +p {margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: 0em; line-height: 1.2;} + +p.illustration {text-align: center; margin-top: 1em; +margin-bottom: 1em;} +p.illustration.chapter {margin-top: 3em;} + +p.caption {text-align: center; font-variant: small-caps; +margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p.first {margin-top: .75em;} +p.first:first-letter {float: left; font-size: 400%; padding: 0em; +margin: -.2em .1em -.2em 0em;} + +div.poem p {margin-top: 0em;} +div.poem p.stanza {margin-top: .5em;} +div.poem p.indent {margin-left: 1em;} + + +/* tables */ + +table {margin: 1em 10%;} + +td {vertical-align: top; text-align: left; padding: .1em 1em .1em 0em;} +td.number, td.item {text-align: right;} +td.number {vertical-align: bottom;} + +table p {margin-top: 0em; margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em; +line-height: normal;} + + +/* text formatting */ + +span.firstword {text-transform: uppercase;} +.smallcaps {font-variant: small-caps;} +.smallprint {font-size: .67em;} + + +/* my additions */ + +ins.correction {text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted red;} + +.pagenum {position: absolute; right: 2%; font-size: 95%; +font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; text-align: right; +text-indent: 0em;} + +p.mynote {background-color: #FFD; color: #000; padding: 1em; +border: 2px solid #EC5; margin: 1em 5%; font-family: sans-serif; +font-size: 90%;} + +hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } +pre {font-size: 75%; } +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Adventures of Maya the Bee, by Waldemar +Bonsels, Translated by Adele Szold Seltzer and Arthur Guiterman, +Illustrated by Homer Boss</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Adventures of Maya the Bee</p> +<p>Author: Waldemar Bonsels</p> +<p>Release Date: August 19, 2007 [eBook #22354]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF MAYA THE BEE***</p> +<br><br><h4 class="pg">E-text prepared by Louise Hope, Stephen Hope,<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br> + from digital material generously made available by<br> + Internet Archive/American Libraries<br> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<p class = "mynote"> +Note:<br> +<br> +Project Gutenberg has the original German version +of this work (<i>Die Biene Maja und ihre Abenteuer</i>). +See +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21021">http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/21021</a><br> +<br> +Images of the original pages are available through +Internet Archive/American Libraries. See<br> +<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bons">http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bons</a><br> +or<br> +<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bonsiala">http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bonsiala</a> +</p> +<p> </p> +<p class = "mynote"> +In the printed text, the small unframed illustrations appeared at the +end of each chapter. For this e-text they have been moved to mid-chapter +to separate them visually from the chapter-head illustrations.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" noshade> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/cover.jpg" width = "386" height = "599" +alt = "see caption"> +</p> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<h4>THE ADVENTURES OF MAYA THE BEE</h4> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<a name = "frontis" id = "frontis"> </a> +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/frontis.jpg" width = "425" height = "568" +alt = "see caption"> +</p> + +<p class = "caption"> +“Won’t You Come In?”</p> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<h3>THE ADVENTURES OF</h3> + +<h1>MAYA THE BEE</h1> + +<p> </p> + +<h6>BY</h6> +<h4>WALDEMAR BONSELS</h4> + +<p> </p> + +<h6>ILLUSTRATED<br> +BY</h6> +<h4 class = "smallcaps">Homer Boss</h4> + +<p> </p> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/publogo.png" width = "65" height = "41" +alt = "publisher's device TS"> +</p> + +<p> </p> + +<h6>NEW YORK</h6> +<h5>THOMAS SELTZER</h5> +<h5>1922</h5> + + +<hr class = "page"> + +<h6>COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY<br> +THOMAS SELTZER, INC.</h6> + +<hr class = "micro"> + +<h6><i>All rights reserved</i></h6> + +<p> <br> </p> + +<h6><i>Printed in the United States of America</i></h6> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<h5>The Translation of this book was made by</h5> +<h5 class = "smallcaps">Adele Szold Seltzer</h5> + +<h5>The Poems were done into English by</h5> +<h5 class = "smallcaps">Arthur Guiterman</h5> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<div class = "maintext"> + +<h4 class = "chapter"><a name = "contents" id = "contents"> +CONTENTS</a></h4> + +<table class = "toc" summary = "contents"> +<tr> +<td class = "smallprint">CHAPTER</td> +<td width = "80%"> </td> +<td class = "number smallprint">PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapI">I.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps">First Flight</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapI">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapII">II.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The House of the Rose</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapII">14</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapIII">III.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Lake</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapIII">25</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapIV">IV.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +Effie and Bobbie</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapIV">43</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapV">V.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Acrobat</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapV">60</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapVI">VI.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +Puck</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapVI">72</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapVII">VII.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +In the Toils</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapVII">87</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapVIII">VIII.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Bug and the Butterfly</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapVIII">104</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapIX">IX.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Lost Leg</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapIX">113</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapX">X.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Wonders of the Night</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapX">133</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXI">XI.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +With the Sprite</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXI">153</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXII">XII.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +Alois, Ladybird and Poet</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXII">163</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXIII">XIII.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Fortress</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXIII">172</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXIV">XIV.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Sentinel</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXIV">182</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXV">XV.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Warning</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXV">194</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXVI">XVI.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Battle</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXVI">204</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "item"><a href = "#chapXVII">XVII.</a></td> +<td><p class = "smallcaps"> +The Queen’s Friend</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#chapXVII">218</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<h4 class = "chapter"><a name = "plates" id = "plates"> +LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS</a></h4> + +<table class = "toc" summary = "list of plates"> +<tr> +<td><p> +“Won’t you come in?”</p></td> +<td class = "number smallcaps"><a href = "#frontis"> +Frontispiece</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class = "number smallprint" colspan = "2"> +FACING PAGE</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> +Maya lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the lake, and flew +inland</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#plate1">42</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> +A human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#plate2">146</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> +The Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and two +ladies-in-waiting</p></td> +<td class = "number"><a href = "#plate3">200</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<span class = "pagenum">1</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic001.png" width = "336" height = "163" +alt = "Maya in flight"> +</p> + + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapI" id = "chapI"> +CHAPTER I</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">FIRST FLIGHT</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">The</span> +elderly lady-bee who helped the baby-bee Maya when she awoke to life and +slipped from her cell was called Cassandra and commanded great respect +in the hive. Those were exciting days. A rebellion had broken out +in the nation of bees, which the queen was unable to suppress.</p> + +<p>While the experienced Cassandra wiped Maya’s large bright eyes and +tried as best she could to arrange her delicate wings, the big hive +hummed and buzzed like a threatening thunderstorm, and the baby-bee +found it very warm and said so to her companion.</p> + +<p>Cassandra looked about troubled, without +<span class = "pagenum">2</span> +replying. It astonished her that the child so soon found something to +criticize. But really the child was right: the heat and the pushing and +crowding were almost unbearable. Maya saw an endless succession of bees +go by in such swarming haste that sometimes one climbed up and over +another, or several rolled past together clotted in a ball.</p> + +<p>Once the queen-bee approached. Cassandra and Maya were jostled aside. +A drone, a friendly young fellow of immaculate appearance, +came to their assistance. He nodded to Maya and stroked the shining +hairs on his breast rather nervously with his foreleg. (The bees use +their forelegs as arms and hands.)</p> + +<p>“The crash will come,” he said to Cassandra. “The revolutionists will +leave the city. A new queen has already been proclaimed.”</p> + +<p>Cassandra scarcely noticed him. She did not even thank him for his +help, and Maya felt keenly conscious that the old lady was not a bit +nice to the young gentleman. The child was a little afraid to ask +questions, the impressions were coming so thick and fast; they +<span class = "pagenum">3</span> +threatened to overwhelm her. The general excitement got into her blood, +and she set up a fine, distinct buzzing.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean by that?” said Cassandra. “Isn’t there noise enough +as it is?”</p> + +<p>Maya subsided at once, and looked at Cassandra questioningly.</p> + +<p>“Come here, child, we’ll see if we cannot quiet down a bit.” +Cassandra took Maya by her gleaming wings, which were still soft and new +and marvelously transparent, and shoved her into an almost deserted +corner beside a few honeycombs filled with honey.</p> + +<p>Maya stood still and held on to one of the cells.</p> + +<p>“It smells delicious here,” she observed.</p> + +<p>Her remark seemed to fluster the old lady again.</p> + +<p>“You must learn to wait, child,” she replied. “I have brought up +several hundred young bees this spring and given them lessons for their +first flight, but I haven’t come across another one that was as pert and +forward as you are. You seem to be an exceptional nature.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">4</span> +<p>Maya blushed and stuck the two dainty fingers of her hand in her +mouth.</p> + +<p>“Exceptional nature—what is an exceptional nature?” she asked +shyly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>that’s</i> not nice,” cried Cassandra, referring not to +Maya’s question, which she had scarcely heeded, but to the child’s +sticking her fingers in her mouth. “Now, listen. Listen very carefully +to what I am going to tell you. I can devote only a short time to +you. Other baby-bees have already slipped out, and the only helper I +have on this floor is Turka, and Turka is dreadfully overworked and for +the last few days has been complaining of a buzzing in her ears. Sit +down here.”</p> + +<p>Maya obeyed, with great brown eyes fastened on her teacher.</p> + +<p>“The first rule that a young bee must learn,” said Cassandra, and +sighed, “is that every bee, in whatever it thinks and does, must be like +the other bees and must always have the good of all in mind. In our +order of society, which we have held to be the right one from time +immemorial and which couldn’t have been better preserved than it has +been, this rule is +<span class = "pagenum">5</span> +the one fundamental basis for the well-being of the state. To-morrow you +will fly out of the hive, an older bee will accompany you. At first you +will be allowed to fly only short stretches and you will have to observe +everything, very carefully, so that you can find your way back home +again. Your companion will show you the hundred flowers and blossoms +that yield the best nectar. You’ll have to learn them by heart. This is +something no bee can escape doing.—Here, you may as well learn the +first line right away—clover and honeysuckle. Repeat it. Say +‘clover and honeysuckle.’”</p> + +<p>“I can’t,” said little Maya. “It’s awfully hard. I’ll see the flowers +later anyway.”</p> + +<p>Cassandra opened her old eyes wide and shook her head.</p> + +<p>“You’ll come to a bad end,” she sighed. “I can foresee that +already.”</p> + +<p>“Am I supposed later on to gather nectar all day long?” asked +Maya.</p> + +<p>Cassandra fetched a deep sigh and gazed at the baby-bee seriously and +sadly. She seemed to be thinking of her own toilsome +<span class = "pagenum">6</span> +life—toil from beginning to end, nothing but toil. Then she spoke +in a changed voice, with a loving look in her eyes for the child.</p> + +<p>“My dear little Maya, there will be other things in your +life—the sunshine, lofty green trees, flowery heaths, lakes of +silver, rushing, glistening waterways, the heavens blue and radiant, and +perhaps even human beings, the highest and most perfect of Nature’s +creations. Because of all these glories your work will become a joy. +Just think—all that lies ahead of you, dear heart. You have good +reason to be happy.”</p> + +<p>“I’m so glad,” said Maya, “that’s what I want to be.”</p> + +<p>Cassandra smiled kindly. In that instant—why, she did not +know—she conceived a peculiar affection for the little bee, such +as she could not recall ever having felt for any child-bee before. And +that, probably, is how it came about that she told Maya more than a bee +usually hears on the first day of its life. She gave her various special +bits of advice, warned her against the dangers of the wicked +<span class = "pagenum">7</span> +world, and named the bees’ most dangerous enemies. At the end she spoke +long of human beings, and implanted the first love for them in the +child’s heart and the germ of a great longing to know them.</p> + +<p>“Be polite and agreeable to every insect you meet,” she said in +conclusion, “then you will learn more from them than I have told you +to-day. But beware of the wasps and hornets. The hornets are our most +formidable enemy, and the wickedest, and the wasps are a useless tribe +of thieves, without home or religion. We are a stronger, more powerful +nation, while they steal and murder wherever they can. You may use your +sting upon insects, to defend yourself and inspire respect, but if you +insert it in a warm-blooded animal, especially a human being, you will +die, because it will remain sticking in the skin and will break off. So +do not sting warm-blooded creatures except in dire need, and then do it +without flinching or fear of death. For it is to our courage as well as +our wisdom that we bees owe the universal respect and esteem in which we +are held. And now good-by, Maya +<span class = "pagenum">8</span> +dear. Good luck to you. Be faithful to your people and your queen.”</p> + +<p>The little bee nodded yes, and returned her old monitor’s kiss and +embrace. She went to bed in a flutter of secret joy and excitement and +could scarcely fall asleep from curiosity. For the next day she was to +know the great, wide world, the sun, the sky and the flowers.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the bee-city had quieted down. A large part of the younger +bees had now left the kingdom to found a new city; but for a long time +the droning of the great swarm could be heard outside in the sunlight. +It was not from arrogance or evil intent against the queen that these +had quitted; it was because the population had grown to such a size that +there was no longer room for all the inhabitants, and it was impossible +to store a sufficient food-supply of honey to feed them all over the +winter. You see, according to a government treaty of long standing, +a large part of the honey gathered in summer had to be delivered up +to human beings, who in return assured the welfare of the bee-state, +provided +<span class = "pagenum">9</span> +for the peace and safety of the bees, and gave them shelter against the +cold in winter.</p> + +<p>“The sun has risen!”</p> + +<p>The joyous call sounding in Maya’s ears awoke her out of sleep the +next morning. She jumped up and joined a lady working-bee.</p> + +<p>“Delighted,” said the lady cordially. “You may fly with me.”</p> + +<p>At the gate, where there was a great pushing and crowding, they were +held up by the sentinels, one of whom gave Maya the password without +which no bee was admitted into the city.</p> + +<p>“Be sure to remember it,” he said, “and good luck to you.”</p> + +<p>Outside the city gates, a flood of sunlight assailed the little bee, +a brilliance of green and gold, so rich and warm and resplendent +that she had to close her eyes, not knowing what to say or do from sheer +delight.</p> + +<p>“Magnificent! It really is,” she said to her companion. “Do we fly +into that?”</p> + +<p>“Right ahead!” answered the lady-bee.</p> + +<p>Maya raised her little head and moved her pretty new wings. Suddenly +she felt the +<span class = "pagenum">10</span> +flying-board on which she had been sitting sink down, while the ground +seemed to be gliding away behind, and the large green domes of the +tree-tops seemed to be coming toward her.</p> + +<p>Her eyes sparkled, her heart rejoiced.</p> + +<p>“I am flying,” she cried. “It cannot be anything else. What I am +doing must be flying. Why, it’s splendid, perfectly splendid!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you’re flying,” said the lady-bee, who had difficulty in +keeping up with the child. “Those are linden-trees, those toward which +we are flying, the lindens in our castle park. You can always tell where +our city is by those lindens. But you’re flying so fast, Maya.”</p> + +<p>“Fast?” said Maya. “How can one fly fast enough? Oh, how sweet the +sunshine smells!”</p> + +<p>“No,” replied her companion, who was rather out of breath, “it’s not +the sunshine, it’s the flowers that smell.—But please, don’t go so +fast, else I’ll drop behind. Besides, at this pace you won’t observe +things and be able to find your way back.”</p> + +<p>But little Maya transported by the sunshine and the joy of living, +did not hear. +<span class = "pagenum">11</span> +She felt as though she were darting like an arrow through a +green-shimmering sea of light, to greater and greater splendor. The +bright flowers seemed to call to her, the still, sunlit distances lured +her on, and the blue sky blessed her joyous young flight.</p> + +<p>“Never again will it be as beautiful as it is to-day,” she thought. +“I <i>can’t</i> turn back. I can’t think of anything except the +sun.”</p> + +<p>Beneath her the gay pictures kept changing, the peaceful landscape +slid by slowly, in broad stretches.</p> + +<p>“The sun must be all of gold,” thought the baby-bee.</p> + +<p>Coming to a large garden, which seemed to rest in blossoming clouds +of cherry-tree, hawthorn, and lilacs, she let herself down to earth, +dead-tired, and dropped in a bed of red tulips, where she held on to one +of the big flowers. With a great sigh of bliss she pressed herself +against the blossom-wall and looked up to the deep blue of the sky +through the gleaming edges of the flowers.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic013.png" width = "251" height = "164" +alt = "Maya sitting on a tulip"> +</p> + +<p>“Oh, how beautiful it is out here in the great world, a thousand +times more beautiful than +<span class = "pagenum">12</span> +in the dark hive. I’ll never go back there again to carry honey or make +wax. No, indeed, I’ll never do that. I want to see and know the +world in bloom. I am not like the other bees, my heart is meant for +pleasure and surprises, experiences and adventures. I will not be +afraid of any dangers. Haven’t I got strength and courage and a +sting?”</p> + +<p>She laughed, bubbling over with delight, and took a deep draught of +nectar out of the flower of the tulip.</p> + +<p>“Grand,” she thought. “It’s glorious to be alive.”</p> + +<p>Ah, if little Maya had had an inkling of the many dangers and +hardships that lay ahead of her, she would certainly have thought twice. +But never dreaming of such things, she stuck to her resolve.</p> + +<p>Soon tiredness overcame her, and she fell asleep. When she awoke, the +sun was gone, twilight lay upon the land. A bit of alarm, after +all. Maya’s heart went a little faster. Hesitatingly she crept out of +the flower, which was about to close up for the night, and hid herself +away under a leaf high up in the top +<span class = "pagenum">13</span> +of an old tree, where she went to sleep, thinking in the utmost +confidence:</p> + +<p>“I’m not afraid. I won’t be afraid right at the very start. The sun +is coming round again; that’s certain; Cassandra said so. The thing to +do is to go to sleep quietly and sleep well.”</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">14</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic014.png" width = "338" height = "162" +alt = "Maya and the beetle"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapII" id = "chapII"> +CHAPTER II</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE HOUSE OF THE ROSE</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">By</span> +the time Maya awoke, it was full daylight. She felt a little chilly +under her big green leaf, and stiff in her limbs, so that her first +movements were slow and clumsy. Clinging to a vein of the leaf she let +her wings quiver and vibrate, to limber them up and shake off the dust; +then she smoothed her fair hair, wiped her large eyes clean, and crept, +warily, down to the edge of the leaf, where she paused and looked +around.</p> + +<p>The glory and the glow of the morning sun were dazzling. Though +Maya’s resting-place still lay in cool shadow, the leaves overhead shone +like green gold.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">15</span> +<p>“Oh, you glorious world,” thought the little bee.</p> + +<p>Slowly, one by one, the experiences of the previous day came back to +her—all the beauties she had seen and all the risks she had run. +She remained firm in her resolve not to return to the hive. To be sure, +when she thought of Cassandra, her heart beat fast, though it was not +very likely that Cassandra would ever find her.—No, no, to her +there was no joy in forever having to fly in and out of the hive, +carrying honey and making wax. This was clear, once and for all. She +wanted to be happy and free and enjoy life in her own way. Come what +might, she would take the consequences.</p> + +<p>Thus lightly thought Maya, the truth being that she had no real idea +of the things that lay in store for her.</p> + +<p>Afar off in the sunshine something glimmered red. A lurking +impatience seized the little bee. Moreover, she felt hungry. So, +courageously, with a loud joyous buzz, she swung out of her hiding-place +into the clear, glistening air and the warm sunlight, and +<span class = "pagenum">16</span> +made straight for the red patch that seemed to nod and beckon. When she +drew near she smelled a perfume so sweet that it almost robbed her of +her senses, and she was hardly able to reach the large red flower. She +let herself down on the outermost of its curved petals and clung to it +tightly. At the gentle tipping of the petal a shining silver sphere +almost as big as herself, came rolling toward her, transparent and +gleaming in all the colors of the rainbow. Maya was dreadfully +frightened, yet fascinated too by the splendor of the cool silver +sphere, which rolled by her, balanced on the edge of the petal, leapt +into the sunshine, and fell down in the grass. Oh, oh! The beautiful +ball had shivered into a score of wee pearls. Maya uttered a little cry +of terror. But the tiny round fragments made such a bright, lively +glitter in the grass, and ran down the blades in such twinkling, +sparkling little drops like diamonds in the lamplight, that she was +reassured.</p> + +<p>She turned towards the inside of the calix. A beetle, a little +smaller than herself, with brown wing-sheaths and a black breastplate, +was sitting +<span class = "pagenum">17</span> +at the entrance. He kept his place unperturbed, and looked at her +seriously, though by no means unamiably. Maya bowed politely.</p> + +<p>“Did the ball belong to you?” she asked, and receiving no reply +added: “I am very sorry I threw it down.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean the dewdrop?” smiled the beetle, rather superior. “You +needn’t worry about that. I had taken a drink already and my wife +never drinks water, she has kidney trouble.—What are you doing +here?”</p> + +<p>“What is this wonderful flower?” asked Maya, not answering the +beetle’s question. “Would you be good enough to tell me its name?”</p> + +<p>Remembering Cassandra’s advice she was as polite as possible.</p> + +<p>The beetle moved his shiny head in his dorsal plate, a thing he could +do easily without the least discomfort, as his head fitted in perfectly +and glided back and forth without a click.</p> + +<p>“You seem to be only of yesterday?” he said, and laughed—not so +very politely. Altogether there was something about him +<span class = "pagenum">18</span> +that struck Maya as unrefined. The bees had more culture and better +manners. Yet he seemed to be a good-natured fellow, because, seeing +Maya’s blush of embarrassment, he softened to her childish +ignorance.</p> + +<p>“It’s a rose,” he explained indulgently. “So now you know.—We +moved in four days ago, and since we moved in, it has flourished +wonderfully under our care.—Won’t you come in?”</p> + +<p>Maya hesitated, then conquered her misgivings and took a few steps +forward. He pressed aside a bright petal, Maya entered, and she and the +beetle walked beside each other through the narrow chambers with their +subdued light and fragrant walls.</p> + +<p>“What a charming home!” exclaimed Maya, genuinely taken with the +place. “The perfume is positively intoxicating.”</p> + +<p>Maya’s admiration pleased the beetle.</p> + +<p>“It takes wisdom to know where to live,” he said, and smiled +good-naturedly. “‘Tell me where you live and I’ll tell you what you’re +worth,’ says an old adage.—Would you like some nectar?”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">19</span> +<p>“Oh,” Maya burst out, “I’d love some.”</p> + +<p>The beetle nodded and disappeared behind one of the walls. Maya +looked about. She was happy. She pressed her cheeks and little hands +against the dainty red hangings and took deep breaths of the delicious +perfume, in an ecstasy of delight at being permitted to stop in such a +beautiful dwelling.</p> + +<p>“It certainly is a great joy to be alive,” she thought. “And there’s +no comparison between the dingy, crowded stories in which the bees live +and work and this house. The very quiet here is splendid.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly there was a loud sound of scolding behind the walls. It was +the beetle growling excitedly in great anger. He seemed to be hustling +and pushing someone along roughly, and Maya caught the following, in a +clear, piping voice full of fright and mortification.</p> + +<p>“Of course, because I’m alone, you dare to lay hands on me. But wait +and see what you get when I bring my associates along. You are a +ruffian. Very well, I am going. But remember, I called you a +ruffian. You’ll never forget <i>that</i>.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">20</span> +<p>The stranger’s emphatic tone, so sharp and vicious, frightened Maya +dreadfully. In a few moments she heard the sound of someone running +out.</p> + +<p>The beetle returned and sullenly flung down some nectar.</p> + +<p>“An outrage,” he said. “You can’t escape those vermin anywhere. They +don’t allow you a moment’s peace.”</p> + +<p>Maya was so hungry she forgot to thank him and took a mouthful of +nectar and chewed, while the beetle wiped the perspiration from his +forehead and slightly loosened his upper armor so as to catch his +breath.</p> + +<p>“Who was that?” mumbled Maya, with her mouth still full.</p> + +<p>“Please empty your mouth—finish chewing and swallowing your +nectar. One can’t understand a word you say.”</p> + +<p>Maya obeyed, but the excited owner of the house gave her no time to +repeat her question.</p> + +<p>“It was an ant,” he burst out angrily. “Do those ants think we save +and store up hour after hour only for them! The idea of going right into +the pantry without a how-do-you-do +<span class = "pagenum">21</span> +or a by-your-leave! It makes me furious. If I didn’t realize that the +ill-mannered creatures actually didn’t know better, I wouldn’t +hesitate a second to call them—thieves!”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic024.png" width = "253" height = "198" +alt = "Maya flies away from Peter"> +</p> + +<p>At this he suddenly remembered his own manners.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” he said, turning to Maya, “I forgot to introduce +myself. My name is Peter, of the family of rose-beetles.”</p> + +<p>“My name is Maya,” said the little bee shyly. “I am delighted to make +your acquaintance.” She looked at Peter closely; he was bowing +repeatedly, and spreading his feelers like two little brown fans. That +pleased Maya immensely.</p> + +<p>“You have the most fascinating feelers,” she said, “simply +sweet....”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes,” observed Peter, flattered, “people do think a lot of +them. Would you like to see the other side?”</p> + +<p>“If I may.”</p> + +<p>The rose-beetle turned his fan-shaped feelers to one side and let a +ray of sunlight glide over them.</p> + +<p>“Great, don’t you think?” he asked.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">22</span> +<p>“I shouldn’t have thought anything like them possible,” rejoined +Maya. “My own feelers are very plain.”</p> + +<p>“Well, yes,” observed Peter, “to each his own. By way of compensation +you certainly have beautiful eyes, and the color of your body, the gold +of your body, is not to be sneezed at.”</p> + +<p>Maya beamed. Peter was the first person to tell her she had any good +looks. Life was great. She was happy as a lark, and helped herself to +some more nectar.</p> + +<p>“An excellent quality of honey,” she remarked.</p> + +<p>“Take some more,” said Peter, rather amazed by his little guest’s +appetite. “Rose-juice of the first vintage. One has to be careful and +not spoil one’s stomach. There’s some dew left, too, if you’re +thirsty.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you so much,” said Maya. “I’d like to fly now, if you will +permit me.”</p> + +<p>The rose-beetle laughed.</p> + +<p>“Flying, always flying,” he said. “It’s in the blood of you bees. +I don’t understand such a restless way of living. There’s some +<span class = "pagenum">23</span> +advantage in staying in one place, too, don’t you think?”</p> + +<p>Peter courteously held the red curtain aside.</p> + +<p>“I’ll go as far as our observation petal with you,” he said. “It +makes an excellent place to fly from.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thank you,” said Maya, “I can fly from anywhere.”</p> + +<p>“That’s where you have the advantage over me,” replied Peter. “I have +some difficulty in unfolding my lower wings.” He shook her hand and held +the last curtain aside for her.</p> + +<p>“Oh, the blue sky!” rejoiced Maya. “Good-by.”</p> + +<p>“So long,” called Peter, remaining on the top petal to see Maya rise +rapidly straight up to the sky in the golden sunlight and the clear, +pure air of the morning. With a sigh he returned, pensive, to his cool +rose-dwelling, for though it was still early he was feeling rather warm. +He sang his morning song to himself, and it hummed in the red sheen of +the petals and the radiance of the spring day that slowly mounted and +spread over the blossoming earth.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">24</span> +<div class = "poem"> +<p>Gold and green are field and tree,</p> +<p class = "indent">Warm in summer’s glow;</p> +<p>All is bright and fair to see</p> +<p class = "indent">While the roses blow.</p> + +<p class = "stanza"> +What or why the world may be</p> +<p class = "indent">Who can guess or know?</p> +<p>All my world is glad and free</p> +<p class = "indent">While the roses blow.</p> + +<p class = "stanza"> +Brief, they say, my time of glee;</p> +<p class = "indent">With the roses I go;</p> +<p>Yes, but life is good to me</p> +<p class = "indent">While the roses blow.</p> +</div> + + +<span class = "pagenum">25</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic025.png" width = "338" height = "163" +alt = "Maya on a lilypad"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapIII" id = "chapIII"> +CHAPTER III</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE LAKE</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">“Dear</span> +me,” thought Maya, after she had flown off, “oh, dear me, I forgot to +ask Mr. Peter about human beings. A gentleman of his wide +experience could certainly have told me about them. But perhaps I’ll +meet one myself to-day.” Full of high spirits and in a happy mood of +adventure, she let her bright eyes rove over the wide landscape that lay +spread out below in all its summer splendor.</p> + +<p>She came to a large garden gleaming with a thousand colors. On her +way she met many insects, who sang out greetings, and wished her a +pleasant journey and a good harvest.—But +<span class = "pagenum">26</span> +every time she met a bee, her heart went pit-a-pat. After all she felt a +little guilty to be idle, and was afraid of coming upon acquaintances. +Soon, however, she saw that the bees paid not the slightest attention to +her.</p> + +<p>Then all of a sudden the world seemed to turn upside down. The +heavens shone <i>below</i> her, in endless depths. At first she was +dreadfully frightened; she thought she had flown too far up and lost her +way in the sky. But presently she noticed that the trees were mirrored +on the edge of the terrestrial sky, and to her entrancement she realized +that she was looking at a great serene basin of water which lay blue and +clear in the peaceful morning. She let herself down close to the +surface. There was her image flying in reflection, the lovely gold of +her body shining at her from the water, her bright wings glittering like +clear glass. And she observed that she held her little legs properly +against her body, as Cassandra had taught her to do.</p> + +<p>“It’s bliss to be flying over the surface of water like this. It is, +really,” she thought.</p> + +<p>Big fish and little fish swam about in the +<span class = "pagenum">27</span> +clear element, or seemed to float idly. Maya took good care not to go +too close; she knew there was danger to bees from the race of +fishes.</p> + +<p>On the opposite shore she was attracted by the water-lilies and the +rushes, the water-lilies with their large round leaves lying outspread +on the water like green plates, and the rushes with their sun-warmed, +reedy stalks.</p> + +<p>She picked out a leaf well-concealed under the tall blades of the +rushes. It lay in almost total shade, except for two round spots like +gold coins; the rushes swayed above in the full sunlight.</p> + +<p>“Glorious,” said the little bee, “perfectly glorious.”</p> + +<p>She began to tidy herself. Putting both arms up behind her head she +pulled it forward as if to tear it off, but was careful not to pull too +hard, just enough to scrape away the dust; then, with her little hind +legs, she stroked and dragged down her wing-sheaths, which sprang back +in position looking beautifully bright and glossy.</p> + +<p>Just as she had completed her toilet a small +<span class = "pagenum">28</span> +steely blue-bottle came and alighted on the leaf beside her. He looked +at her in surprise.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing here on my leaf?” he demanded.</p> + +<p>Maya was startled.</p> + +<p>“Is there any objection to a person’s just resting here a moment or +two?”</p> + +<p>Maya remembered Cassandra’s telling her that the nation of bees +commanded great respect in the insect world. Now she was going to see if +it was true; she was going to see if she, Maya, could compel respect. +Nevertheless her heart beat a little faster because her tone had been +very loud and peremptory.</p> + +<p>But actually the blue-bottle was frightened. He showed it plainly. +When he saw that Maya wasn’t going to let anyone lay down the law to her +he backed down. With a surly buzz he swung himself on to a blade that +curved above Maya’s leaf, and said in a much politer tone, talking down +to her out of the sunshine:</p> + +<p>“You ought to be working. As a bee you certainly ought. But if you +want to rest, all right. I’ll wait here.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">29</span> +<p>“There are plenty of leaves,” observed Maya.</p> + +<p>“All rented,” said the blue-bottle. “Now-a-days one is happy to be +able to call a piece of ground one’s own. If my predecessor hadn’t been +snapped up by a frog two days ago, I should still be without a +proper place to live in. It’s not very pleasant to have to hunt up a +different lodging every night. Not everyone has such a well-ordered +state as you bees. But permit me to introduce myself. My name is Jack +Christopher.”</p> + +<p>Maya was silent with terror, thinking how awful it must be to fall +into the clutches of a frog.</p> + +<p>“Are there many frogs in the lake?” she asked and drew to the very +middle of the leaf so as not to be seen from the water.</p> + +<p>The blue-bottle laughed.</p> + +<p>“You are giving yourself unnecessary trouble,” he jeered. “The frog +can see you from below when the sun shines, because then the leaf is +transparent. He sees you sitting on my leaf, perfectly.”</p> + +<p>Beset by the awful idea that maybe a big +<span class = "pagenum">30</span> +frog was squatting right under her leaf staring at her with his bulging +hungry eyes, Maya was about to fly off when something dreadful happened, +something for which she was totally unprepared. In the confusion of the +first moment she could not make out just exactly what <i>was</i> +happening. She only heard a loud rustling like the wind in dry leaves, +then a singing whistle, a loud angry hunter’s cry. And a fine, +transparent shadow glided over her leaf. Now she saw—saw fully, +and her heart stood still in terror. A great, glittering dragon-fly +had caught hold of poor Jack Christopher and held him tight in its +large, fangs, sharp as a knife. The blade of the rush bent low beneath +their weight. Maya could see them hovering above her and also mirrored +in the clear water below. Jack’s screams tore her heart. Without +thinking, she cried:</p> + +<p>“Let the blue-bottle go, at once, whoever you are. You have no right +to interfere with people’s habits. You have no right to be so +arbitrary.”</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly released Jack from its fangs, +<span class = "pagenum">31</span> +but still held him fast with its arms, and turned its head toward Maya. +She was fearfully frightened by its large, grave eyes and vicious +pincers, but the glittering of its body and wings fascinated her. They +flashed like glass and water and precious stones. The horrifying thing +was its huge size. How could she have been so bold? She was all +a-tremble.</p> + +<p>“Why, what’s the matter, child?” The dragon-fly’s tone, surprisingly, +was quite friendly.</p> + +<p>“Let him go,” cried Maya, and tears came into her eyes. “His name is +Jack Christopher.”</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly smiled.</p> + +<p>“Why, little one?” it said, putting on an interested air, though most +condescending.</p> + +<p>Maya stammered helplessly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s such a nice, elegant gentleman, and he’s never done you any +harm so far as I know.”</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly regarded Jack Christopher contemplatively.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he <i>is</i> a dear little fellow,” it replied tenderly +and—bit Jack’s head off.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">32</span> +<p>Maya thought she was losing her senses. For a long time she couldn’t +utter a sound. In horror she listened to the munching and crunching +above her as the body of Jack Christopher the blue-bottle was being +dismembered.</p> + +<p>“Don’t put on so,” said the dragon-fly with its mouth full, chewing. +“Your sensitiveness doesn’t impress me. Are you bees any better? What do +you do? Evidently you are very young still and haven’t looked about in +your own house. When the massacre of the drones takes place in the +summer, the rest of the world is no less shocked and horrified, and +<i>I</i> think with greater justification.”</p> + +<p>Maya asked:</p> + +<p>“Have you finished up there?” She did not dare to raise her eyes.</p> + +<p>“One leg still left,” replied the dragon-fly.</p> + +<p>“Do please swallow it. Then I’ll answer you,” cried Maya, who knew +that the drones in the hive <i>had</i> to be killed off in the summer, +and was provoked by the dragon-fly’s stupidity. “But don’t you dare to +come a step closer. If you do I’ll use my sting on you.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">33</span> +<p>Little Maya had really lost her temper. It was the first time she had +mentioned her sting and the first time she felt glad that she possessed +the weapon.</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly threw her a wicked glance. It had finished its meal +and sat with its head slightly ducked, fixing Maya with its eyes and +looking like a beast of prey about to pounce. The little bee was quite +calm now. Where she got her courage from she couldn’t have told, but she +was no longer afraid. She set up a very fine clear buzzing as she had +once heard a sentinel do when a wasp came near the entrance of the +hive.</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly said slowly and threateningly:</p> + +<p>“Dragon-flies live on the best terms with the nation of bees.”</p> + +<p>“Very sensible in them,” flashed Maya.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to insinuate that I am afraid of you—I of you?” +With a jerk the dragon-fly let go of the rush, which sprang back into +its former position, and flew off with a whirr and sparkle of its wings, +straight down to the surface of the water, where it made a superb +<span class = "pagenum">34</span> +appearance reflected in the mirror of the lake. You’d have thought there +were two dragon-flies. Both moved their crystal wings so swiftly and +finely that it seemed as though a brilliant sheen of silver were +streaming around them.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic042.png" width = "316" height = "174" +alt = "the dragonfly"> +</p> + +<p>Maya quite forgot her grief over poor Jack Christopher and all sense +of her own danger.</p> + +<p>“How lovely! How lovely!” she cried enthusiastically, clapping her +hands.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean me?” The dragon-fly spoke in astonishment, but quickly +added: “Yes, I must admit I am fairly presentable. Yesterday I was +flying along the brook, and you should have heard some human beings who +were lying on the bank rave over me.”</p> + +<p>“Human beings!” exclaimed Maya. “Oh my, did you see human +beings?”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” answered the dragon-fly. “But you’ll be very interested +to know my name, I’m sure. My name is Loveydear, of the order Odonata, +of the family Libellulidæ.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do tell me about human beings,” implored Maya, after she had +introduced herself.</p> + +<p>The dragon-fly seemed won over. She +<span class = "pagenum">35</span> +seated herself on the leaf beside Maya. And the little bee let her, +knowing Miss Loveydear would be careful not to come too close.</p> + +<p>“Have human beings a sting?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Good gracious, what would they do with a sting! No, they have worse +weapons against us, and they are very dangerous. There isn’t a soul who +isn’t afraid of them, especially of the little ones whose two legs +show—the boys.”</p> + +<p>“Do they try to catch you?” asked Maya, breathless with +excitement.</p> + +<p>“Yes, can’t you understand why?” Miss Loveydear glanced at her wings. +“I have seldom met a human being who hasn’t tried to catch me.”</p> + +<p>“But why?” asked Maya in a tremor.</p> + +<p>“You see,” said Miss Loveydear, with a modest smirk and a drooping, +sidewise glance, “there’s something attractive about us dragon-flies. +That’s the only reason I know. Some members of our family who let +themselves be caught went through the cruellest tortures and finally +died.”</p> + +<p>“Were they eaten up?”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">36</span> +<p>“No, no, not exactly that,” said Miss Loveydear comfortingly. “So far +as is known, man does not feed on dragon-flies. But sometimes he has +murderous desires, a lust for killing, which will probably never be +explained. You may not believe it, but cases have actually occurred of +the so-called boy-men catching dragon-flies and pulling off their legs +and wings for pure pleasure. You doubt it, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course I doubt it,” cried Maya indignantly.</p> + +<p>Miss Loveydear shrugged her glistening shoulders. Her face looked old +with knowledge.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she said after a pause, grieving and pale, “if only one could +speak of these things openly. I had a brother who gave promise of a +splendid future, only, I’m sorry to say, he was a little reckless and +dreadfully curious. A boy once threw a net over him, a net +fastened to a long pole.—Who would dream of a thing like that? +Tell me. Would you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said the little bee, “never. I should never have thought of +such a thing.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">37</span> +<p>The dragon-fly looked at her.</p> + +<p>“A black cord was tied round his waist between his wings, so that he +could fly, but not fly away, not escape. Each time my brother thought he +had got his liberty, he would be jerked back horribly within the boy’s +reach.”</p> + +<p>Maya shook her head.</p> + +<p>“You don’t dare even think of it,” she whispered.</p> + +<p>“If a day passes when I don’t think of it,” said the dragon-fly, “I +am sure to dream of it. One misfortune followed another. My brother soon +died.” Miss Loveydear heaved a deep sigh.</p> + +<p>“What did he die of?” asked Maya, in genuine sympathy.</p> + +<p>Miss Loveydear could not reply at once. Great tears welled up and +rolled down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>“He was stuck in a pocket,” she sobbed. “No one can stand being stuck +in a pocket.”</p> + +<p>“But what is a pocket?” Maya could hardly take in so many new and +awful things all at once.</p> + +<p>“A pocket,” Miss Loveydear explained, “is +<span class = "pagenum">38</span> +a store-room that men have in their outer hide.—And what else do +you think was in the pocket when my brother was stuck into it? Oh, the +dreadful company in which my poor brother had to draw his last breath! +You’ll never guess!”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Maya, all in a quiver, “no, I don’t think I +can.—Honey, perhaps?”</p> + +<p>“Not likely,” observed Miss Loveydear with an air of mingled +importance and distress. “You’ll seldom find honey in the pockets of +human beings. I’ll tell you.—A frog was in the pocket, and a +pen-knife, and a carrot. Well?”</p> + +<p>“Horrible,” whispered Maya.—“What <i>is</i> a pen-knife?”</p> + +<p>“A pen-knife, in a way, is a human being’s sting, an artificial one. +They are denied a sting by nature, so they try to imitate it.—The +frog, thank goodness, was nearing his end. One eye was gone, one leg was +broken, and his lower jaw was dislocated. Yet, for all that, the moment +my brother was stuck in the pocket he hissed at him out of his crooked +mouth:</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">39</span> +<p>“‘As soon as I am well, I will swallow you.’</p> + +<p>“With his remaining eye he glared at my brother, and in the +half-light of the prison you can imagine what an effect the look he gave +him must have had—fearful!—Then something even more horrible +happened. The pocket was suddenly shaken, my brother was pressed against +the dying frog and his wings stuck to its cold, wet body. He went off in +a faint.—Oh, the misery of it! There are no words to +describe it.”</p> + +<p>“How did you find all this out?” Maya was so horrified she could +scarcely frame the question.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you,” replied Miss Loveydear. “After a while the boy got +hungry and dug into his pocket for the carrot. It was under my brother +and the frog, and the boy threw them away first.—I heard my +brother’s cry for help, and found him lying beside the frog on the +grass. I reached him only in time to hear the whole story before he +breathed his last. He put his arms round my neck and kissed me farewell. +Then he died—bravely +<span class = "pagenum">40</span> +and without complaining, like a little hero. When his crushed wings had +given their last quiver, I laid an oak leaf over his body and went +to look for a sprig of forget-me-nots to put upon his grave. ‘Sleep +well, my little brother,’ I cried, and flew off in the quiet of the +evening. I flew toward the two red suns, the one in the sky and the +one in the lake. No one has ever felt as sad and solemn as I did +then.—Have you ever had a sorrow in your life? Perhaps you’ll tell +me about it some other time.”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Maya. “As a matter of fact, until now I have always been +happy.”</p> + +<p>“You may thank your lucky stars,” said Miss Loveydear with a note of +disappointment in her voice.</p> + +<p>Maya asked about the frog.</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>him</i>,” said Miss Loveydear. “He, it is presumed, met with +the end he deserved. The hard-heartedness of him, to frighten a dying +person! When I found him on the grass beside my brother, he was trying +to get away. But on account of his broken leg and one eye gone, all he +could do was hop round +<span class = "pagenum">41</span> +in a circle and hop round in a circle. He looked too comical for words. +‘The stork’ll soon get ye,’ I called to him as I flew away.”</p> + +<p>“Poor frog!” said little Maya.</p> + +<p>“Poor frog! Poor frog indeed! That’s going too far. Pitying a frog. +The idea! To feel sorry for a frog is like clipping your own wings. You +seem to have no principles.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps. But it’s hard for me to see <i>any</i> one suffer.”</p> + +<p>“Oh”—Miss Loveydear comforted her—“that’s because you’re +so young. You’ll learn to bear it in time. Cheerio, my dear.—But I +must be getting into the sunshine. It’s pretty cold here. Good-by!”</p> + +<p>A faint rustle and the gleam of a thousand colors, lovely pale colors +like the glints in running water and clear gems.</p> + +<p>Miss Loveydear swung through the green rushes out over the surface of +the water. Maya heard her singing in the sunshine. She stood and +listened. It was a fine song, with something of the melancholy sweetness +of a folksong, and it filled the little bee’s heart with mingled +happiness and sadness.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">42</span> + +<div class = "poem"> +<p>Softly flows the lovely stream</p> +<p>Touched by morning’s rosy gleam</p> +<p class = "indent">Through the alders darted,</p> +<p>Where the rushes bend and sway,</p> +<p>Where the water-lilies say</p> +<p class = "indent">“We are golden-hearted!”</p> + +<p class = "stanza"> +Warm the scent the west-wind brings,</p> +<p>Bright the sun upon my wings,</p> +<p class = "indent">Joy among the flowers!</p> +<p>Though my life may not be long,</p> +<p>Golden summer, take my song!</p> +<p class = "indent">Thanks for perfect hours!</p> +</div> + +<p>“Listen!” a white butterfly called to its friend. “Listen to the song +of the dragon-fly.” The light creatures rocked close to Maya, and rocked +away again into the radiant blue day. Then Maya also lifted her wings, +buzzed farewell to the silvery lake, and flew inland.</p> + +<a name = "plate1" id = "plate1"> </a> +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/plate1.jpg" width = "425" height = "608" +alt = "see caption"> +</p> + +<p class = "caption"> +Maya lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the lake, and flew inland</p> + +<hr class = "page"> + +<span class = "pagenum">43</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic043.png" width = "335" height = "162" +alt = "Bobbie the dung beetle and Effie"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapIV" id = "chapIV"> +CHAPTER IV</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">EFFIE AND BOBBIE</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">When</span> +Maya awoke the next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell, +she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bed +quiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. Through the open corolla +came a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. In +some apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens, +scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps, +ventured to the outer edge of the drooping blossom. It was raining! +A fine cool rain was coming down with a light plash, covering +everything all round with millions of +<span class = "pagenum">44</span> +bright silver pearls, which clung to the leaves and flowers, rolled down +the green paths of the blades of grass, and refreshed the brown +soil.</p> + +<p>What a change in the world! It was the first time in the child-bee’s +young life that she had seen rain. It filled her with wonder; it +delighted her. Yet she was a little troubled. She remembered Cassandra’s +warning never to fly abroad in the rain. It must be difficult, she +realized, to move your wings when the drops beat them down. And the cold +really hurt, and she missed the quiet golden sunshine that gladdened the +earth and made it a place free from all care.</p> + +<p>It seemed to be very early still. The animal life in the grass was +just beginning. From the concealment of her lofty bluebell Maya +commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. +Watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting +homesickness. It was too amusing for anything to be safe in a +hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings of the grass-dwellers +below.</p> + +<p>Slowly, however, her thoughts went back—back +<span class = "pagenum">45</span> +to the home she had left, to the bee-state, and to the protection of its +close solidarity. There, on this rainy day, the bees would be sitting +together, glad of the day of rest, doing a little construction here and +there on the cells, or feeding the larvæ. Yet, on the whole, the hive +was very quiet and Sunday-like when it rained. Only, sometimes +messengers would fly out to see how the weather was and from what +quarter the wind was blowing. The queen would go about her kingdom from +story to story, testing things, bestowing a word of praise or blame, +laying an egg here and there, and bringing happiness with her royal +presence wherever she went. She might pat one of the younger bees on the +head to show her approval of what it had already done, or she might ask +it about its new experiences. How delighted a bee would be to catch a +glance or receive a gracious word from the queen!</p> + +<p>Oh, thought Maya, how happy it made you to be able to count yourself +one in a community like that, to feel that everybody respected you, and +you had the powerful protection +<span class = "pagenum">46</span> +of the state. Here, out in the world, lonely and exposed, she ran great +risks of her life. She was cold, too. And supposing the rain were to +keep up! What would she do, how could she find something to eat? There +was scarcely any honey-juice in the canterbury bell, and the pollen +would soon give out.</p> + +<p>For the first time Maya realized how necessary the sunshine is for a +life of vagabondage. Hardly anyone would set out on adventure, she +thought, if it weren’t for the sunshine. The very recollection of it was +cheering, and she glowed with secret pride that she had had the daring +to start life on her own hook. The number of things she had already seen +and experienced! More, ever so much more, than the other bees were +likely to know in a whole lifetime. Experience was the most precious +thing in life, worth any sacrifice, she thought.</p> + +<p>A troop of migrating ants were passing by, and singing as they +marched through the cool forest of grass. They seemed to be in a hurry. +Their crisp morning song, in rhythm with their march, touched the little +bee’s heart with melancholy.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">47</span> +<div class = "poem"> +<p>Few our days on earth shall be,</p> +<p class = "indent">Fast the moments flit;</p> +<p>First-class robbers such as we</p> +<p class = "indent">Do not care a bit!</p> +</div> + +<p>They were extraordinarily well armed and looked saucy, bold and +dangerous.</p> + +<p>The song died away under the leaves of the coltsfoot. But some +mischief seemed to have been done there. A rough, hoarse voice +sounded, and the small leaves of a young dandelion were energetically +thrust aside. Maya saw a corpulent blue beetle push its way out. It +looked like a half-sphere of dark metal, shimmering with lights of blue +and green and occasional black. It may have been two or even three times +her size. Its hard sheath looked as though nothing could destroy it, and +its deep voice positively frightened you.</p> + +<p>The song of the soldiers, apparently, had roused him out of sleep. He +was cross. His hair was still rumpled, and he rubbed the sleep out of +his cunning little blue eyes.</p> + +<p>“Make way, <i>I’m</i> coming. Make way.”</p> + +<p>He seemed to think that people should step +<span class = "pagenum">48</span> +aside at the mere announcement of his approach.</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord I’m not in his way,” thought Maya, feeling very safe +in her high, swaying nook of concealment. Nevertheless her heart went +pit-a-pat, and she withdrew a little deeper into the flower-bell.</p> + +<p>The beetle moved with a clumsy lurch through the wet grass, +presenting a not exactly elegant appearance. Directly under Maya’s +blossom was a withered leaf. Here he stopped, shoved the leaf aside, and +made a step backward. Maya saw a hole in the ground.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she thought, all a-gog with curiosity, “the things there +<i>are</i> in the world. I never thought of such a thing. Life’s +not long enough for all there is to see.”</p> + +<p>She kept very quiet. The only sound was the soft pelting of the rain. +Then she heard the beetle calling down the hole:</p> + +<p>“If you want to go hunting with me, you’ll have to make up your mind +to get right up. It’s already bright daylight.” He was feeling so very +superior for having waked up first +<span class = "pagenum">49</span> +that it was hard for him to be pleasant.</p> + +<p>A few moments passed before the answer came. Then Maya heard a thin, +chirping voice rise out of the hole.</p> + +<p>“For goodness’ sake, do close the door up there. It’s +raining in.”</p> + +<p>The beetle obeyed. He stood in an expectant attitude, his head cocked +a little to one side, and squinted through the crack.</p> + +<p>“Please hurry,” he grumbled.</p> + +<p>Maya was tense with eagerness to see what sort of a creature would +come out of the hole. She crept so far out on the edge of the blossom +that a drop of rain fell on her shoulder, and gave her a start. She +wiped herself dry.</p> + +<p>Below her the withered leaf heaved; a brown insect crept out, slowly. +Maya thought it was the queerest specimen she had ever seen. It had a +plump body, set on extremely thin, slow-moving legs, and a fearfully +thick head, with little upright feelers. It looked flustered.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, Effie dear.” The beetle went slim with politeness. He +was all politeness, and his body seemed really slim. “How +<span class = "pagenum">50</span> +did you sleep? How did you sleep, my precious—my all?”</p> + +<p>Effie took his hand rather stonily.</p> + +<p>“It can’t be, Bobbie,” she said. “I can’t go with you. We’re creating +too much talk.”</p> + +<p>Poor Bobbie looked quite alarmed.</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand,” he stammered. “I don’t understand.—Is our +new-found happiness to be wrecked by such nonsense? Effie, +think—think the thing over. What do <i>you</i> care <i>what</i> +people say? You have your hole, you can creep into it whenever you like, +and if you go down far enough, you won’t hear a syllable.”</p> + +<p>Effie smiled a sad, superior smile.</p> + +<p>“Bobbie, you don’t understand. I have my own views in the +matter.—Besides, there’s something else. You have been exceedingly +indelicate. You took advantage of my ignorance. You let me think you +were a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug. +A considerable difference! He saw you engaged in—well, doing +something I don’t care to mention. I’m sure you will now admit that I +must take back my word.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">51</span> +<p>Bobbie was stunned. When he recovered from the shock he burst out +angrily:</p> + +<p>“No, I <i>don’t</i> understand. I can’t understand. I want to be +loved for myself, and not for my business.”</p> + +<p>“If only it weren’t dung,” said Effie offishly, “anything but dung, +I shouldn’t be so particular.—And please remember, I’m a +young widow who lost her husband only three days ago under the most +tragic circumstances—he was gobbled up by the shrewmouse—and +it isn’t proper for me to be gadding about. A young widow should +lead a life of complete retirement. So—good-by.”</p> + +<p>Pop into her hole went Effie, as though a puff of wind had blown her +away. Maya would never have thought it possible that anyone could dive +into the ground as fast as that.</p> + +<p>Effie was gone, and Bobbie stared in blank bewilderment down the +empty dark opening, looking so utterly stupid that Maya had to +laugh.</p> + +<p>Finally he roused, and shook his small round head in angry distress. +His feelers +<span class = "pagenum">52</span> +drooped dismally like two rain-soaked fans.</p> + +<p>“People now-a-days no longer appreciate fineness of character and +respectability,” he sighed. “Effie is heartless. I didn’t dare +admit it to myself, but she is, she’s absolutely heartless. But even if +she hasn’t got the <i>right feelings</i>, she ought to have the <i>good +sense</i> to be my wife.”</p> + +<p>Maya saw the tears come to his eyes, and her heart was seized with +pity.</p> + +<p>But the next instant Bobbie stirred. He wiped the tears away and +crept cautiously behind a small mound of earth, which his friend had +probably shoveled out of her dwelling. A little flesh-colored +earthworm was coming along through the grass. It had the queerest way of +propelling itself, by first making itself long and thin, then short and +thick. Its cylinder of a body consisted of nothing but delicate rings +that pushed and groped forward noiselessly.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, startling Maya, Bobbie made one step out of his +hiding-place, caught hold of the worm, bit it in two, and began calmly +to eat the one half, heedless of its desperate wriggling +<span class = "pagenum">53</span> +or the wriggling of the other half in the grass. It was a tiny little +worm.</p> + +<p>“Patience,” said Bobbie, “it will soon be over.”</p> + +<p>But while he chewed, his thoughts seemed to revert to Effie, his +Effie, whom he had lost forever and aye, and great tears rolled down his +cheeks.</p> + +<p>Maya pitied him from the bottom of her heart.</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” she thought, “there certainly is a lot of sadness in the +world.”</p> + +<p>At that moment she saw the half of the worm which Bobbie had set +aside, making a hasty departure.</p> + +<p>“Did you <i>ever</i> see the like!” she cried, surprised into such a +loud tone that Bobbie looked around wondering where the sound had come +from.</p> + +<p>“Make way!” he called.</p> + +<p>“But I’m not in your way,” said Maya.</p> + +<p>“Where are you then? You must be somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“Up here. Up above you. In the bluebell.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you, but I’m no grasshopper. I +<span class = "pagenum">54</span> +can’t turn my head up far enough to see you. Why did you scream?”</p> + +<p>“The half of the worm is running away.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Bobbie, looking after the retreating fraction, “the +creatures are very lively.—I’ve lost my appetite.” With that he +threw away the remnant which he was still holding in his hand, and this +worm portion also retreated, in the other direction.</p> + +<p>Maya was completely puzzled. But Bobbie seemed to be familiar with +this peculiarity of worms.</p> + +<p>“Don’t suppose that I always eat worms,” he remarked. “You see, you +don’t find roses everywhere.”</p> + +<p>“Tell the little one at least which way its other half ran,” cried +Maya in great excitement.</p> + +<p>Bobbie shook his head gravely.</p> + +<p>“Those whom fate has rent asunder, let no man join together again,” +he observed.—“Who are you?”</p> + +<p>“Maya, of the nation of bees.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad to hear it. I have nothing against the bees.—Why are +you sitting about? +<span class = "pagenum">55</span> +Bees don’t usually sit about. Have you been sitting there long?”</p> + +<p>“I slept here.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed!” There was a note of suspicion in Bobbie’s voice. “I hope +you slept well, <i>very</i> well. Did you just wake up?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maya, who had shrewdly guessed that Bobbie would not like +her having overheard his conversation with Effie, the cricket, and did +not want to hurt his feelings again.</p> + +<p>Bobbie ran hither and thither trying to look up and see Maya.</p> + +<p>“Wait,” he said. “If I raise myself on my hind legs and lean against +that blade of grass I’ll be able to see you, and you’ll be able to look +into my eyes. You want to, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“Why, I do indeed. I’d like to very much.”</p> + +<p>Bobbie found a suitable prop, the stem of a buttercup. The flower +tipped a little to one side so that Maya could see him perfectly as he +raised himself on his hind legs and looked up at her. She thought he had +a nice, dear, friendly face—but not so very young any more and +cheeks rather too plump. He bowed, setting +<span class = "pagenum">56</span> +the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself:</p> + +<p>“Bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles.”</p> + +<p>Maya had to laugh to herself. She knew very well he was not a +rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. But she passed the matter over in +silence, not caring to mortify him.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you mind the rain?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. I’m accustomed to the rain—from the roses, you know. +It’s usually raining there.”</p> + +<p>Maya thought to herself:</p> + +<p>“After all I must punish him a little for his brazen lies. He’s so +frightfully vain.”</p> + +<p>“Bobbie,” she said with a sly smile, “what sort of a hole is that one +there, under the leaf?”</p> + +<p>Bobbie started.</p> + +<p>“A hole? A hole, did you say? There are very many holes round here. +It’s probably just an ordinary hole. You have no idea how many holes +there are in the ground.”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic059.png" width = "244" height = "222" +alt = "Bobbie on his back"> +</p> + +<p>Bobbie had hardly uttered the last word when something dreadful +happened. In his eagerness to appear indifferent he had lost his balance +and toppled over. Maya heard a despairing shriek, and the next instant +saw the +<span class = "pagenum">57</span> +beetle lying flat on his back in the grass, his arms and legs waving +pitifully in the air.</p> + +<p>“I’m done for,” he wailed, “I’m done for. I can’t get back on my feet +again. I’ll never be able to get back on my feet again. I’ll die. I’ll +die in this position. Have you ever heard of a worse fate!”</p> + +<p>He carried on so that he did not hear Maya trying to comfort him. And +he kept making efforts to touch the ground with his feet. But each time +he’d painfully get hold of a bit of earth, it would give way, and he’d +fall over again on his high half-sphere of a back. The case looked +really desperate, and Maya was honestly concerned; he was already quite +pale in the face and his cries were heart-rending.</p> + +<p>“I can’t stand it, I can’t stand this position,” he yelled. “At least +turn your head away. Don’t torture a dying man with your inquisitive +stares.—If only I could reach a blade of grass, or the stem of the +buttercup. You can’t hold on to the air. Nobody can do that. Nobody can +hold on to the air.”</p> + +<p>Maya’s heart was quivering with pity.</p> + +<p>“Wait,” she cried, “I’ll try to turn you over. +<span class = "pagenum">58</span> +If I try very hard I am bound to succeed. But Bobbie, <i>Bobbie</i>, +dear man, don’t yell like that. Listen to me. If I bend a blade of grass +over and reach the tip of it to you, will you be able to use it and save +yourself?”</p> + +<p>Bobbie had no ears for her suggestion. Frightened out of his senses, +he did nothing but kick and scream.</p> + +<p>So little Maya, in spite of the rain, flew out of her cover over to a +slim green blade of grass beside Bobbie, and clung to it near the tip. +It bent under her weight and sank directly above Bobbie’s wriggling +limbs. Maya gave a little cry of delight.</p> + +<p>“Catch hold of it,” she called.</p> + +<p>Bobbie felt something tickle his face and quickly grabbed at it, +first with one hand, then with the other, and finally with his legs, +which had splendid sharp claws, two each. Bit by bit he drew himself +along the blade until he reached the base, where it was thicker and +stronger, and he was able to turn himself over on it.</p> + +<p>He heaved a tremendous sigh of relief.</p> + +<p>“Good God!” he exclaimed. “That was +<span class = "pagenum">59</span> +awful. But for my presence of mind I should have fallen a victim to your +talkativeness.”</p> + +<p>“Are you feeling better?” asked Maya.</p> + +<p>Bobbie clutched his forehead.</p> + +<p>“Thanks, thanks. When this dizziness passes, I’ll tell you all +about it.”</p> + +<p>But Maya never got the answer to her question. A field-sparrow came +hopping through the grass in search of insects, and the little bee +pressed herself close to the ground and kept very quiet until the bird +had gone. When she looked around for Bobbie he had disappeared. So she +too made off; for the rain had stopped and the day was clear and +warm.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">60</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic060.png" width = "340" height = "163" +alt = "Maya and the grasshopper"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapV" id = "chapV"> +CHAPTER V</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE ACROBAT</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Oh,</span> +what a day!</p> + +<p>The dew had fallen early in the morning, and when the sun rose and +cast its slanting beams across the forest of grass, there was such a +sparkling and glistening and gleaming that you didn’t know what to say +or do for sheer ecstasy, it was so beautiful, so beautiful!</p> + +<p>The moment Maya awoke, glad sounds greeted her from all round. Some +came out of the trees, from the throats of the birds, the dreaded +creatures who could yet produce such exquisite song; other happy calls +came out of the air, from flying insects, or out of the grass +<span class = "pagenum">61</span> +and the bushes, from bugs and flies, big ones and little ones.</p> + +<p>Maya had made it very comfortable for herself in a hole in a tree. It +was safe and dry, and stayed warm the greater part of the night because +the sun shone on the entrance all day long. Once, early in the morning, +she had heard a woodpecker rat-a-tat-tatting on the bark of the trunk, +and had lost no time getting away. The drumming of a woodpecker is as +terrifying to a little insect in the bark of a tree as the breaking open +of our shutters by a burglar would be to us. But at night she was safe +in her lofty nook. At night no creatures came prying.</p> + +<p>She had sealed up part of the entrance with wax, leaving just space +enough to slip in and out; and in a cranny in the back of the hole, +where it was dark and cool, she had stored a little honey against rainy +days.</p> + +<p>This morning she swung herself out into the sunshine with a cry of +delight, all anticipation as to what the fresh, lovely day might bring. +She sailed straight through the golden air, looking like a brisk dot +driven by the wind.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">62</span> +<p>“I am going to meet a human being to-day,” she cried. “I feel sure I +am. On days like this human beings must certainly be out in the open air +enjoying nature.”</p> + +<p>Never had she met so many insects. There was a coming and going and +all sorts of doings; the air was alive with a humming and a laughing and +glad little cries. You had to join in, you just <i>had</i> to +join in.</p> + +<p>After a while Maya let herself down into a forest of grass, where all +sorts of plants and flowers were growing. The highest were the white +tufts of yarrow and butterfly-weed—the flaming milkweed that drew +you like a magnet. She took a sip of nectar from some clover and was +about to fly off again when she saw a perfect droll of a beast perched +on a blade of grass curving above her flower. She was thoroughly +scared—he was such a lean green monster—but then her +interest was tremendously aroused, and she remained sitting still, as +though rooted to the spot, and stared straight at him.</p> + +<p>At first glance you’d have thought he had horns. Looking closer you +saw it was his oddly +<span class = "pagenum">63</span> +protuberant forehead that gave this impression. Two long, long feelers +fine as the finest thread grew out of his brows, and his body was the +slimmest imaginable, and green all over, even to his eyes. He had dainty +forelegs and thin, inconspicuous wings that couldn’t be very practical, +Maya thought. Oddest of all were his great hindlegs, which stuck up over +his body like two jointed stilts. His sly, saucy expression was +contradicted by the look of astonishment in his eyes, and you couldn’t +say there was any meanness in his eyes either. No, rather a lot of good +humor.</p> + +<p>“Well, mademoiselle,” he said to Maya, evidently annoyed by her +surprised expression, “never seen a grasshopper before? Or are you +laying eggs?”</p> + +<p>“The idea!” cried Maya in shocked accents. “It wouldn’t occur to me. +Even if I could, I wouldn’t. It would be usurping the sacred duties +of our queen. I wouldn’t do such a foolish thing.”</p> + +<p>The grasshopper ducked his head and made such a funny face that Maya +had to laugh out loud in spite of her chagrin.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">64</span> +<p>“Mademoiselle,” he began, then had to laugh himself, and said: +“You’re a case! You’re a case!”</p> + +<p>The fellow’s behavior made Maya impatient.</p> + +<p>“Why do you laugh?” she asked in a not altogether friendly tone. “You +can’t be serious expecting me to lay eggs, especially out here on the +grass.”</p> + +<p>There was a snap. “Hoppety-hop,” said the grasshopper, and was +gone.</p> + +<p>Maya was utterly non-plussed. Without the help of his wings he had +swung himself up in the air in a tremendous curve. Foolhardiness +bordering on madness, she thought.</p> + +<p>But there he was again. From where, she couldn’t tell, but there he +was, beside her, on a leaf of her clover.</p> + +<p>He looked her up and down, all round, before and behind.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said then, pertly, “you certainly can’t lay eggs. You’re not +equipped for it. You haven’t got a borer.”</p> + +<p>“What—borer?” Maya covered herself +<span class = "pagenum">65</span> +with her wings and turned so that the stranger could see nothing but her +face.</p> + +<p>“Borer, that’s what I said.—Don’t fall off your base, +mademoiselle.—You’re a wasp, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>To be called a wasp! Nothing worse could happen to little Maya.</p> + +<p>“I <i>never</i>!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“Hoppety-hop,” answered he, and was off again.</p> + +<p>“The fellow makes me nervous,” she thought, and decided to fly away. +She couldn’t remember ever having been so insulted in her life. What a +disgrace to be mistaken for a wasp, one of those useless wasps, those +tramps, those common thieves! It really was infuriating.</p> + +<p>But there he was again!</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle,” he called and turned round part way, so that his long +hindlegs looked like the hands of a clock standing at five minutes +before half-past seven, “mademoiselle, you must excuse me for +interrupting our conversation now and then. But suddenly I’m seized. +I must hop. I can’t help +<span class = "pagenum">66</span> +it, I must hop, no matter where. Can’t you hop, too?”</p> + +<p>He smiled a smile that drew his mouth from ear to ear. Maya couldn’t +keep from laughing.</p> + +<p>“Can you?” said the grasshopper, and nodded encouragingly.</p> + +<p>“Who <i>are</i> you?” asked Maya. “You’re terribly exciting.”</p> + +<p>“Why, everybody knows who I am,” said the green oddity, and grinned +almost beyond the limits of his jaws.</p> + +<p>Maya never could make out whether he spoke in fun or in earnest.</p> + +<p>“I’m a stranger in these parts,” she replied pleasantly, “else I’m +sure I’d know you.—But please note that I belong to the family of +bees, and am positively not a wasp.”</p> + +<p>“My goodness,” said the grasshopper, “one and the same thing.”</p> + +<p>Maya couldn’t utter a sound, she was so excited.</p> + +<p>“You’re uneducated,” she burst out at length. “Take a good look at a +wasp once.”</p> + +<p>“Why should I?” answered the green one. +<span class = "pagenum">67</span> +“What good would it do if I observed differences that exist only in +people’s imagination? You, a bee, fly round in the air, sting +everything you come across, and can’t hop. Exactly the same with a wasp. +So where’s the difference? Hoppety-hop!” And he was gone.</p> + +<p>“But now I am going to fly away,” thought Maya.</p> + +<p>There he was again.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle,” he called, “there’s going to be a hopping-match +to-morrow. It will be held in the Reverend Sinpeck’s garden. Would you +care to have a complimentary ticket and watch the games? My old woman +has two left over. She’ll trade you one for a compliment. I expect +to break the record.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not interested in hopping acrobatics,” said Maya in some +disgust. “A person who flies has <i>higher</i> interests.”</p> + +<p>The grasshopper grinned a grin you could almost hear.</p> + +<p>“Don’t think <i>too</i> highly of yourself, my dear young lady. Most +creatures in this world can fly, but only a very, very few can hop. You +<span class = "pagenum">68</span> +don’t understand other people’s interests. You have no vision. Even +human beings would like a high elegant hop. The other day I saw the +Reverend Sinpeck hop a yard up into the air to impress a little snake +that slid across his road. His contempt for anything that couldn’t hop +was so great that he threw away his pipe. And reverends, you know, +cannot live without their pipes. I have known +grasshoppers—members of my own family—who could hop to a +height three hundred times their length. <i>Now</i> you’re impressed. +You haven’t a word to say. And you’re inwardly regretting the remarks +you made and the remarks you intended to make. Three hundred times their +own length! Just imagine. Even the elephant, the largest animal in the +world, can’t hop as high as that. Well? You’re not saying anything. +Didn’t I tell you you wouldn’t have anything to say?”</p> + +<p>“But how <i>can</i> I say anything if you don’t give me a +chance?”</p> + +<p>“All right, then, talk,” said the grasshopper pleasantly. +“Hoppety-hop.” He was gone.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic071.png" width = "240" height = "231" +alt = "the grasshopper jumps"> +</p> + +<p>Maya had to laugh in spite of her irritation.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">69</span> +<p>The fellow had certainly furnished her with a strange experience. +Buffoon though he was, still she had to admire his wide information and +worldly wisdom; and though she could not agree with his views of +hopping, she was amazed by all the new things he had taught her in their +brief conversation. If he had been more reliable she would have been +only too glad to ask him questions about a number of different things. +It occurred to her that often people who are least equipped to profit by +experiences are the very ones who have them.</p> + +<p>He knew the names of human beings. Did he, then, understand their +language? If he came back, she’d ask him. And she’d also ask him what he +thought of trying to go near a human being or of entering a human +being’s house.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle!” A blade of grass beside Maya was set swaying.</p> + +<p>“Goodness gracious! Where do you keep coming from?”</p> + +<p>“The surroundings.”</p> + +<p>“But do tell, do you hop out into the world +<span class = "pagenum">70</span> +just so, without knowing where you mean to land?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. Why not? Can <i>you</i> read the future? No one can. Only +the tree-toad, but he never tells.”</p> + +<p>“The things you know! Wonderful, simply wonderful!—Do you +understand the language of human beings?”</p> + +<p>“That’s a difficult question to answer, mademoiselle, because it +hasn’t been proved as yet whether human beings have a language. +Sometimes they utter sounds by which they seem to reach an understanding +with each other—but such awful sounds! So unmelodious! Like +nothing else in nature that I know of. However, there’s one thing you +must allow them: they do seem to try to make their voices pleasanter. +Once I saw two boys take a blade of grass between their thumbs and blow +on it. The result was a whistle which may be compared with the chirping +of a cricket, though far inferior in quality of tone, far inferior. +However, human beings make an honest effort.—Is there anything +else you’d like to ask? I know a thing or two.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">71</span> +<p>He grinned his almost-audible grin.</p> + +<p>But the next time he hopped off, Maya waited for him in vain. She +looked about in the grass and the flowers; he was nowhere to be +seen.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">72</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic072.png" width = "337" height = "163" +alt = "Maya and Puck the fly"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapVI" id = "chapVI"> +CHAPTER VI</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">PUCK</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Maya,</span> +drowsy with the noonday heat, flew leisurely past the glare on the +bushes in the garden, into the cool, broad-leaved shelter of a great +chestnut-tree.</p> + +<p>On the trodden sward in the shade under the tree stood chairs and +tables, evidently for an out-door meal. A short distance away +gleamed the red-tiled roof of a peasant’s cottage, with thin blue +columns of smoke curling up from the chimneys.</p> + +<p>Now at last, thought Maya, she was bound to see a human being. Had +she not reached the very heart of his realm? The tree must +<span class = "pagenum">73</span> +be his property, and the curious wooden contrivances in the shade below +must belong to his hive.</p> + +<p>Something buzzed; a fly alighted on the leaf beside her. It ran up +and down the green veining in little jerks. You couldn’t see its legs +move, and it seemed to be sliding about excitedly. Then it flew from one +finger of the broad leaf to another, but so quickly and unexpectedly +that you might have thought it hadn’t flown but hopped. Evidently it was +looking for the most comfortable place on the leaf. Every now and then, +in the <ins class = "correction" title = "spelling unchanged">suddennest</ins> +way, it would swing itself up in the air a +short space and buzz vehemently, as though something dreadfully untoward +had occurred, or as though it were animated by some tremendous purpose. +Then it would drop back to the leaf, as if nothing had happened, and +resume its jerky racing up and down. Lastly, it would sit quite still, +like a rigid image.</p> + +<p>Maya watched its antics in the sunshine, then approached it and said +politely:</p> + +<p>“How do you do? Welcome to my leaf. You are a fly, are you not?”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">74</span> +<p>“What else do you take me for?” said the little one. “My name is +Puck. I am very busy. Do you want to drive me away?”</p> + +<p>“Why, not at all. I am glad to make your acquaintance.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you,” was all Puck said, and with that he tried to pull +his head off.</p> + +<p>“Mercy!” cried Maya.</p> + +<p>“I must do this. You don’t understand. It’s something you know +nothing about,” Puck rejoined calmly, and slid his legs over his wings +till they curved round the tip of his body. “I’m more than a fly,” he +added with some pride. “I’m a housefly. I flew out here for the +fresh air.”</p> + +<p>“How interesting!” exclaimed Maya gleefully. “Then you must know all +about human beings.”</p> + +<p>“As well as the pockets of my trousers,” Puck threw out disdainfully. +“I sit on them every day. Didn’t you know <i>that</i>? I thought +you bees were so <i>clever</i>. You pretend to be at any rate.”</p> + +<p>“My name is Maya,” said the little bee rather shyly. Where the other +insects got +<span class = "pagenum">75</span> +their self-assurance, to say nothing of their insolence, she couldn’t +understand.</p> + +<p>“Thanks for the information. Whatever your name, you’re a +simpleton.”</p> + +<p>Puck sat there tilted like a cannon in position to be fired off, his +head and breast thrust upward, the hind tip of his body resting on the +leaf. Suddenly he ducked his head and squatted down, so that he looked +as if he had no legs.</p> + +<p>“You’ve got to watch out and be careful,” he said. “That’s the most +important thing of all.”</p> + +<p>But an angry wave of resentment was surging in little Maya. The +insult Puck had offered her was too much. Without really knowing what +made her do it, she pounced on him quick as lightning, caught him by the +collar and held him tight.</p> + +<p>“I will teach you to be polite to a bee,” she cried.</p> + +<p>Puck set up an awful howl.</p> + +<p>“Don’t sting me,” he screamed. “It’s the only thing you can do, but +it’s killing. Please remove the back of your body. That’s where +<span class = "pagenum">76</span> +your sting is. And let me go, please let me go, if you possibly can. +I’ll do anything you say. Can’t you understand a joke, a mere joke? +Everybody knows that you bees are the most respected of all insects, and +the most powerful, and the most numerous. Only don’t kill me, please +don’t. There won’t be any bringing me back to life. Good God! No one +appreciates my humor!”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” said Maya with a touch of contempt in her heart, “I’ll +let you live on condition that you tell me everything you know about +human beings.”</p> + +<p>“Gladly,” cried Puck. “I’d have told you anyhow. But please let me go +now.”</p> + +<p>Maya released him. She had stopped caring. Her respect for the fly +and any confidence she might have had in him were gone. Of what value +could the experiences of so low, so vulgar a creature be to +serious-minded people? She would have to find out about human beings for +herself.</p> + +<p>The lesson, however, had not been wasted. Puck was much more +endurable now. Scolding and growling he set himself to rights. He +<span class = "pagenum">77</span> +smoothed down his feelers and wings and the minute hairs on his black +body—which were fearfully rumpled; for the girl-bee had laid on +good and hard—and concluded the operation by running his proboscis +in and out several times—something new to Maya.</p> + +<p>“Out of joint, completely out of joint!” he muttered in a pained +tone. “Comes of your excited way of doing things. Look. See for +yourself. The sucking-disk at the end of my proboscis looks like a +twisted pewter plate.”</p> + +<p>“Have you a sucking-disk?” asked Maya.</p> + +<p>“Goodness gracious, of course!—Now tell me. What do you want to +know about human beings?—Never mind about my proboscis being out +of joint. It’ll be all right.—I think I had best tell you a few +things from my own life. You see, I grew up among human beings, so +you’ll hear just what you want to know.”</p> + +<p>“You grew up among human beings?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. It was in the corner of their room that my mother laid +the egg from which I came. I made my first attempts to walk on +<span class = "pagenum">78</span> +their window-shades, and I tested the strength of my wings by flying +from Schiller to Goethe.”</p> + +<p>“What are Schiller and Goethe?”</p> + +<p>“Statues,” explained Puck, very superior, “statues of two men who +seem to have distinguished themselves. They stand under the mirror, one +on the right hand and one on the left hand, and nobody pays any +attention to them.”</p> + +<p>“What’s a mirror? And why do the statues stand under the mirror?”</p> + +<p>“A mirror is good for seeing your belly when you crawl on it. It’s +very amusing. When human beings go up to a mirror, they either put their +hands up to their hair, or pull at their beards. When they are alone, +they smile into the mirror, but if somebody else is in the room they +look very serious. What the purpose of it is, I could never make +out. Seems to be some useless game of theirs. I myself, when I was +still a child, suffered a good deal from the mirror. I’d fly into it and +of course be thrown back violently.”</p> + +<p>Maya plied Puck with more questions about +<span class = "pagenum">79</span> +the mirror, which he found very difficult to answer.</p> + +<p>“Here,” he said at last, “you’ve certainly flown over the smooth +surface of water, haven’t you? Well, a mirror is something like it, +only hard and upright.”</p> + +<p>The little fly, seeing that Maya listened most respectfully and +attentively to the tale of his experiences, became a good deal +pleasanter in his manners. And as for Maya’s opinion of Puck, although +she didn’t believe everything he told her, still she was sorry she had +thought so slightingly of him earlier in their meeting.</p> + +<p>“Often people are far more sensible than we take them to be at +first,” she told herself.</p> + +<p>Puck went on with his story.</p> + +<p>“It took a long time for me to get to understand their language. Now +at last I know what they want. It isn’t much, because they usually say +the same thing every day.”</p> + +<p>“I can scarcely believe it,” said Maya. “Why, they have so many +interests, and think so many things, and do so many things. Cassandra +told me that they build cities so big +<span class = "pagenum">80</span> +that you can’t fly round them in one day, towers as high as the nuptial +flight of our queen, houses that float on the water, and houses that +glide across the country on two narrow silver paths and go faster than +birds.”</p> + +<p>“Wait a moment!” said Puck energetically. “Who is Cassandra? Who is +she, if I may make so bold as to ask? Well?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she was my teacher.”</p> + +<p>“Teacher!” repeated Puck contemptuously. “Probably also a bee. Who +but a bee would overestimate human beings like that? Your Miss +Cassandra, or whatever her name is, doesn’t know her history. Those +cities and towers and other human devices you speak of are none of them +any good to us. Who would take such an impractical view of the world as +you do? If you don’t accept the premise that the earth is dominated by +the flies, that the flies are the most widespread and most important +race on earth, you’ll scarcely get a real knowledge of the world.”</p> + +<p>Puck took a few excited zigzag turns on the leaf and pulled at his +head, to Maya’s intense concern. However, the little bee had observed +<span class = "pagenum">81</span> +by this time that there wasn’t much sense to be got out of his head any +way.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic086.png" width = "261" height = "226" +alt = "Maya and Puck"> +</p> + +<p>“Do you know how you can tell I am right?” asked Puck, rubbing his +hands together as if to tie them in a knot. “Count the number of people +and the number of flies in any room. The result will surprise you.”</p> + +<p>“You may be right. But that’s not the point.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I was born this year?” Puck demanded all of a +sudden.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“I passed through a winter,” Puck announced, all pride. “My +experiences date back to the ice age. In a sense they take me +<i>through</i> the ice age. That’s why I’m here—I’m here to +recuperate.”</p> + +<p>“Whatever else you may be, you certainly are spunky,” remarked +Maya.</p> + +<p>“I should say so,” exclaimed Puck, and made an airy leap out into the +sunshine. “The flies are the boldest race in creation. We never run away +unless it is better to run away, and then we always come +back.—Have you ever sat on a human being?”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">82</span> +<p>“No,” said Maya, looking at the fly distrustfully out of the corner +of her eye. She still didn’t know quite what to make of him. “No, I’m +not interested in sitting on human beings.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, dear child, that’s because you don’t know what it is. If ever +you had seen the fun I have with the man at home, you’d turn green with +envy. I’ll tell you.—In my room there lives an elderly man who +cherishes the color of his nose by means of a peculiar drink, which he +keeps hidden in the corner cupboard. It has a sweet, intoxicating smell. +When he goes to get it he smiles, and his eyes grow small. He takes a +little glass, and he looks up to the ceiling while he drinks, to see if +I am there. I nod down to him, and he passes his hand over his +forehead, nose and mouth to show me where I am to sit later on. Then he +blinks, and opens his mouth as wide as he can, and pulls down the shade +to keep the afternoon sun from bothering us. Finally he lays himself +down on a something called a sofa, and in a short while begins to make +dull snuffling sounds. I suppose he thinks the sounds are +beautiful. We’ll talk about them some other +<span class = "pagenum">83</span> +time. They are man’s slumber song. For me they are the sign that I am to +come down. The first thing I do is to take my portion from the glass, +which he left for me. There’s something tremendously stimulating about a +drop like that. I understand human beings. Then I fly over and take +my place on the forehead of the sleeping man. The forehead lies between +the nose and the hair and serves for thinking. You can tell it does from +the long furrows that go from right to left. They must move whenever a +man thinks if something worth while is to result from his thinking. The +forehead also shows if human beings are annoyed. But then the folds run +up and down, and a round cavity forms over the nose. As soon as I settle +on his forehead and begin to run to and fro in the furrows, the man +makes a snatch in the air with his hands. He thinks I’m somewhere in the +air. That’s because I’m sitting on his think-furrows, and he can’t work +out so quickly where I really am. At last he does. He mutters and jabs +at me. Now then, Miss Maya, or whatever your name is, now then, you’ve +got to have your wits about +<span class = "pagenum">84</span> +you. I see the hand coming, but I wait until the last moment, then +I fly nimbly to one side, sit down, and watch him feel to see if I am +still there.—We kept the game up often for a full half hour. You +have no idea what a lot of endurance the man has. Finally he jumps up +and pours out a string of words which show how ungrateful he is. Well, +what of it? A noble soul seeks no reward. I’m already up on the +ceiling listening to his ungrateful outburst.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t say I particularly like it,” observed Maya. “Isn’t it rather +useless?”</p> + +<p>“Do you expect me to erect a honeycomb on his nose?” exclaimed Puck. +“You have no sense of humor, dear girl. What do <i>you</i> do that’s +useful?”</p> + +<p>Little Maya went red all over, but quickly collected herself to hide +her embarrassment from Puck.</p> + +<p>“The time is coming,” she flashed, “when I shall do something big and +splendid, and good and useful too. But first I want to see what is going +on in the world. Deep down in my heart I feel that the time is +coming.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">85</span> +<p>As Maya spoke she felt a hot tide of hope and enthusiasm flood her +being.</p> + +<p>Puck seemed not to realize how serious she was, and how deeply +stirred. He zigzagged about in his flurried way for a while, then +asked:</p> + +<p>“You don’t happen to have any honey with you, do you, my dear?”</p> + +<p>“I’m so sorry,” replied Maya. “I’d gladly let you have some, +especially after you’ve entertained me so pleasantly, but I really +haven’t got any with me.—May I ask you one more question?”</p> + +<p>“Shoot,” said Puck. “I’ll answer, I’ll always answer.”</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know how I could get into a human being’s house.”</p> + +<p>“Fly in,” said Puck sagaciously.</p> + +<p>“But how, without running into danger?”</p> + +<p>“Wait until a window is opened. But be sure to find the way out +again. Once you’re inside, if you can’t find the window, the best thing +to do is to fly toward the light. You’ll always find plenty of windows +in every house. You need only notice where the +<span class = "pagenum">86</span> +sun shines through. Are you going already?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” replied Maya, holding out her hand. “I have some things to +attend to. Good-by. I hope you quite recover from the effects of +the ice age.”</p> + +<p>And with her fine confident buzz that yet sounded slightly anxious, +little Maya raised her gleaming wings and flew out into the sunshine +across to the flowery meadows to cull a little nourishment.</p> + +<p>Puck looked after her, and carefully meditated what might still be +said. Then he observed thoughtfully:</p> + +<p>“Well, now. Well, well.—Why not?”</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">87</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic087.png" width = "334" height = "162" +alt = "Maya trapped in the spiderweb"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapVII" id = "chapVII"> +CHAPTER VII</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">IN THE TOILS</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">After</span> +her meeting with Puck the fly Maya was not in a particularly happy frame +of mind. She could not bring herself to believe that he was right in +everything he had said about human beings, or right in his relations to +them. She had formed an entirely different conception—a much +finer, lovelier picture, and she fought against letting her mind harbor +low or ridiculous ideas of mankind. Yet she was still afraid to enter a +human dwelling. How was she to know whether or not the owner would like +it? And she wouldn’t for all the world make herself a burden to +anyone.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">88</span> +<p>Her thoughts went back once more to the things Cassandra had told +her.</p> + +<p>“They are good and wise,” Cassandra had said. “They are strong and +powerful, but they never abuse their power. On the contrary, wherever +they go they bring order and prosperity. We bees, knowing they are +friendly to us, put ourselves under their protection and share our honey +with them. They leave us enough for the winter, they provide us with +shelter against the cold, and guard us against the hosts of our enemies +among the animals. There are few creatures in the world who have entered +into such a relation of friendship and voluntary service with human +beings. Among the insects you will often hear voices raised to speak +evil of man. Don’t listen to them. If a foolish tribe of bees ever +returns to the wild and tries to do without human beings, it soon +perishes. There are too many beasts that hanker for our honey, and often +a whole bee-city—all its buildings, all its inhabitants—has +been ruthlessly destroyed, merely because a senseless animal wanted to +satisfy its greed for honey.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">89</span> +<p>That is what Cassandra had told Maya about human beings, and until +Maya had convinced herself of the contrary, she wanted to keep this +belief in them.</p> + +<p>It was now afternoon. The sun was dropping behind the fruit trees in +a large vegetable garden through which Maya was flying. The trees were +long past flowering, but the little bee still remembered them in the +shining glory of countless blossoms, whiter than light, lovely, pure, +and exquisite against the blue of the heavens. The delicious perfume, +the gleam and the shimmer—oh, she’d never forget the rapture of it +as long as she lived.</p> + +<p>As she flew she thought of how all that beauty would come again, and +her heart expanded with delight in the glory of the great world in which +she was permitted to live.</p> + +<p>At the end of the garden shone the starry tufts of the +jasmine—delicate yellow faces set in a wreath of pure +white—sweet perfume wafted to Maya on the soft wings of the +breeze.</p> + +<p>And weren’t there still some trees in bloom? Wasn’t it the season for +lindens? Maya +<span class = "pagenum">90</span> +thought delightedly of the big serious lindens, whose tops held the red +glow of the setting sun to the very last.</p> + +<p>She flew in among the stems of the blackberry vines, which were +putting forth green berries and yielding blossoms at the same time. As +she mounted again to reach the jasmine, something strange to the touch +suddenly laid itself across her forehead and shoulders, and just as +quickly covered her wings. It was the queerest sensation, as if her +wings were crippled and she were suddenly restrained in her flight, and +were falling, helplessly falling. A secret, wicked force seemed to +be holding her feelers, her legs, her wings in invisible captivity. But +she did not fall. Though she could no longer move her wings, she still +hung in the air rocking, caught by a marvelously yielding softness and +delicacy, raised a little, lowered a little, tossed here, tossed there, +like a loose leaf in a faint breeze.</p> + +<p>Maya was troubled, but not as yet actually terrified. Why should she +be? There was no pain nor real discomfort of any sort. Simply that it +was so peculiar, so very peculiar, +<span class = "pagenum">91</span> +and something bad seemed to be lurking in the background. She must get +on. If she tried very hard, she could, assuredly.</p> + +<p>But now she saw a thread across her breast, an elastic silvery thread +finer than the finest silk. She clutched at it quickly, in a cold wave +of terror. It clung to her hand; it wouldn’t shake off. And there ran +another silver thread over her shoulders. It drew itself across her +wings and tied them together—her wings were powerless. And there, +and there! Everywhere in the air and above her body—those bright, +glittering, gluey threads!</p> + +<p>Maya screamed with horror. Now she knew! Oh—oh, now she knew! +She was in a spider’s web.</p> + +<p>Her terrified shrieks rang out in the silent dome of the summer day, +where the sunshine touched the green of the leaves into gold, and +insects flitted to and fro, and birds swooped gaily from tree to tree. +Nearby, the jasmine sent its perfume into the air—the jasmine she +had wanted to reach. Now all was over.</p> + +<p>A small bluish butterfly, with brown dots +<span class = "pagenum">92</span> +gleaming like copper on its wings, came flying very close.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you poor soul,” it cried, hearing Maya’s screams and seeing her +desperate plight. “May your death be an easy one, lovely child. +I cannot help you. Some day, perhaps this very night, I shall +meet with the same fate. But meanwhile life is still lovely for me. +Good-by. Don’t forget the sunshine in the deep sleep of death.”</p> + +<p>And the blue butterfly rocked away, drugged by the sunshine and the +flowers and its own joy of living.</p> + +<p>The tears streamed from Maya’s eyes; she lost her last shred of +self-control. She tossed her captive body to and fro, and buzzed as loud +as she could, and screamed for help—from whom she did not know. +But the more she tossed the tighter she enmeshed herself in the web. +Now, in her great agony, Cassandra’s warnings went through her mind:</p> + +<p>“Beware of the spider and its web. If we bees fall into the spider’s +power we suffer the most gruesome death. The spider is heartless +<span class = "pagenum">93</span> +and tricky, and once it has a person in its toils, it never lets +him go.”</p> + +<p>In a great flare of mortal terror Maya made one huge desperate +effort. Somewhere one of the long, heavier suspension threads snapped. +Maya felt it break, yet at the same time she sensed the awful doom of +the cobweb. This was, that the more one struggled in it, the more +effectively and dangerously it worked. She gave up, in complete +exhaustion.</p> + +<p>At that moment she saw the spider herself—very near, under a +blackberry leaf. At sight of the great monster, silent and serious, +crouching there as if ready to pounce, Maya’s horror was indescribable. +The wicked shining eyes were fastened on the little bee in sinister, +cold-blooded patience.</p> + +<p>Maya gave one loud shriek. This was the worst agony of all. Death +itself could look no worse than that grey, hairy monster with her mean +fangs and the raised legs supporting her fat body like a scaffolding. +She would come rushing upon her, and then all would be over.</p> + +<p>Now a dreadful fury of anger came upon +<span class = "pagenum">94</span> +Maya, such as she had never felt before. Forgetting her great agony, +intent only upon one thing—selling her life as dearly as +possible—she uttered her clear, alarming battle-cry, which all +beasts knew and dreaded.</p> + +<p>“You will pay for your cunning with death,” she shouted at the +spider. “Just come and try to kill me, you’ll find out what a bee +can do.”</p> + +<p>The spider did not budge. She really was uncanny and must have +terrified bigger creatures than little Maya.</p> + +<p>Strong in her anger, Maya now made another violent, desperate effort. +Snap! One of the long suspension threads above her broke. The web was +probably meant for flies and gnats, not for such large insects as +bees.</p> + +<p>But Maya got herself only more entangled.</p> + +<p>In one gliding motion the spider drew quite close to Maya. She swung +by her nimble legs upon a single thread with her body hanging straight +downward.</p> + +<p>“What right have you to break my net?” she rasped at Maya. “What are +you doing here? Isn’t the world big enough for you? +<span class = "pagenum">95</span> +Why do you disturb a peaceful recluse?”</p> + +<p>That was not what Maya had expected to hear. Most certainly not.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t mean to,” she cried, quivering with glad hope. Ugly as the +spider was, still she did not seem to intend any harm. “I didn’t see +your web and I got tangled in it. I’m so sorry. Please +pardon me.”</p> + +<p>The spider drew nearer.</p> + +<p>“You’re a funny little body,” she said, letting go of the thread +first with one leg, then with the other. The delicate thread shook. How +wonderful that it could support the great creature.</p> + +<p>“Oh, do help me out of this,” begged Maya, “I should be so +grateful.”</p> + +<p>“That’s what I came here for,” said the spider, and smiled strangely. +For all her smiling she looked mean and deceitful. “Your tossing and +tugging spoils the whole web. Keep quiet one second, and I will set you +free.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, thanks! Ever so many thanks!” cried Maya.</p> + +<p>The spider was now right beside her. She +<span class = "pagenum">96</span> +examined the web carefully to see how securely Maya was entangled.</p> + +<p>“How about your sting?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Ugh, how mean and horrid she looked! Maya fairly shivered with +disgust at the thought that she was going to touch her, but replied as +pleasantly as she could:</p> + +<p>“Don’t trouble about my sting. I will draw it in, and nobody can hurt +himself on it then.”</p> + +<p>“I should hope not,” said the spider. “Now, then, look out! Keep +quiet. Too bad for my web.”</p> + +<p>Maya remained still. Suddenly she felt herself being whirled round +and round on the same spot, till she got dizzy and sick and had to close +her eyes.—But what was that? She opened her eyes quickly. Horrors! +She was completely enmeshed in a fresh sticky thread which the spider +must have had with her.</p> + +<p>“My God!” cried little Maya softly, in a quivering voice. That was +all she said. Now she saw how tricky the spider had been; now she was +really caught beyond release; now there was absolutely no chance of +escape. She +<span class = "pagenum">97</span> +could no longer move any part of her body. The end was near.</p> + +<p>Her fury of anger was gone, there was only a great sadness in her +heart.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t know there was such meanness and wickedness in the world,” +she thought. “The deep night of death is upon me. Good-by, dear bright +sun. Good-by, my dear friend-bees. Why did I leave you? A happy +life to you. I must die.”</p> + +<p>The spider sat wary, a little to one side. She was still afraid of +Maya’s sting.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she jeered. “How are you feeling, little girl?”</p> + +<p>Maya was too proud to answer the false creature. She merely said, +after a while when she felt she couldn’t bear any more:</p> + +<p>“Please kill me right away.”</p> + +<p>“Really!” said the spider, tying a few torn threads together. +“Really! Do you take me to be as big a dunce as yourself? You’re going +to die anyhow, if you’re kept hanging long enough, and that’s the time +for me to suck the blood out of you—when you can’t sting. Too bad, +though, that you can’t see how dreadfully +<span class = "pagenum">98</span> +you’ve damaged my lovely web. Then you’d realize that you deserve to +die.”</p> + +<p>She dropped down to the ground, laid the end of the newly spun thread +about a stone, and pulled it in tight. Then she ran up again, caught +hold of the thread by which little enmeshed Maya hung, and dragged her +captive along.</p> + +<p>“You’re going into the shade, my dear,” she said, “so that you shall +not dry up out here in the sunshine. Besides, hanging here you’re like a +scarecrow, you’ll frighten away other nice little mortals who don’t +watch where they’re going. And sometimes the sparrows come and rob my +web.—To let you know with whom you’re dealing, my name is Thekla, +of the family of cross-spiders. You needn’t tell me your name. It makes +no difference. You’re a fat bit, and you’ll taste just as tender and +juicy by any name.”</p> + +<p>So little Maya hung in the shade of the blackberry vine, close to the +ground, completely at the mercy of the cruel spider, who intended her to +die by slow starvation. Hanging with her little head downward—a +fearful +<span class = "pagenum">99</span> +position to be in—she soon felt she would not last many more +minutes. She whimpered softly, and her cries for help grew feebler and +feebler. Who was there to hear? Her folk at home knew nothing of this +catastrophe, so <i>they</i> couldn’t come hurrying to her rescue.</p> + +<p>Suddenly down, in the grass, she heard some one growling:</p> + +<p>“Make way! <i>I’m</i> coming.”</p> + +<p>Maya’s agonized heart began to beat stormily. She recognized the +voice of Bobbie, the dung-beetle.</p> + +<p>“Bobbie,” she called, as loud as she could, “Bobbie, dear +Bobbie!”</p> + +<p>“Make way! <i>I’m</i> coming.”</p> + +<p>“But I’m not in your way, Bobbie,” cried Maya. “Oh dear, I’m hanging +over your head. The spider has caught me.”</p> + +<p>“Who are you?” asked Bobbie. “So many people know me. You know they +do, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I am Maya—Maya, the bee. Oh please, please help me!”</p> + +<p>“Maya? Maya?—Ah, now I remember. You made my acquaintance +several weeks ago.—The +<span class = "pagenum">100</span> +deuce! You <i>are</i> in a bad way, if I must say so myself. You +certainly do need my help. As I happen to have a few moments’ time, +I won’t refuse.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Bobbie, can you tear these threads?”</p> + +<p>“Tear those threads! Do you mean to insult me?” Bobbie slapped the +muscles of his arm. “Look, little girl. Hard as steel. No match for +<i>that</i> in strength. I can do more than smash a few cobwebs. +You’ll see something that’ll make you open your eyes.”</p> + +<p>Bobbie crawled up on the leaf, caught hold of the thread by which +Maya was hanging, clung to it, then let go of the leaf. The thread +broke, and they both fell to the ground.</p> + +<p>“That’s only the beginning,” said Bobbie.—“But Maya, you’re +trembling. My dear child, you poor little girl, how pale you are! Now +who would be so afraid of death? You must look death calmly in the face +as I do. So. I’ll unwrap you now.”</p> + +<p>Maya could not utter a syllable. Bright tears of joy ran down her +cheeks. She was to be free again, fly again in the sunshine, wherever +she wished. She was to live.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic103.png" width = "242" height = "178" +alt = "Bobbie frees Maya from the spiderweb"> +</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">101</span> +<p>But then she saw the spider coming down the blackberry vine.</p> + +<p>“Bobbie,” she screamed, “the spider’s coming.”</p> + +<p>Bobbie went on unperturbed, merely laughing to himself. He really was +an extraordinarily strong insect.</p> + +<p>“She’ll think twice before she comes nearer,” he said.</p> + +<p>But there! The vile voice rasped above them:</p> + +<p>“Robbers! Help! I’m being robbed. You fat lump, what are you doing +with my prey?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t excite yourself, madam,” said Bobbie. “I have a right, haven’t +I, to talk to my friend. If you say another word to displease me, I’ll +tear your whole web to shreds. Well? Why so silent all of a sudden?”</p> + +<p>“I am defeated,” said the spider.</p> + +<p>“That has nothing to do with the case,” observed Bobbie. “Now you’d +better be getting away from here.”</p> + +<p>The spider cast a look at Bobbie full of hate and venom; but glancing +up at her web she reconsidered, and turned away slowly, furious, +<span class = "pagenum">102</span> +scolding and growling under her breath. Fangs and stings were of no +avail. They wouldn’t even leave a mark on armor such as Bobbie wore. +With violent denunciations against the injustice in the world, the +spider hid herself away inside a withered leaf, from which she could spy +out and watch over her web.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Bobbie finished the unwrapping of Maya. He tore the network +and released her legs and wings. The rest she could do herself. She +preened herself happily. But she had to go slow, because she was still +weak from fright.</p> + +<p>“You must forget what you have been through,” said Bobbie. “Then +you’ll stop trembling. Now see if you can fly. Try.”</p> + +<p>Maya lifted herself with a little buzz. Her wings worked splendidly, +and to her intense joy she felt that no part of her body had been +injured. She flew slowly up to the jasmine flowers, drank avidly of +their abundant scented honey-juice, and returned to Bobbie, who had left +the blackberry vines and was sitting in the grass.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">103</span> +<p>“I thank you with my whole heart and soul,” said Maya, deeply moved +and happy in her regained freedom.</p> + +<p>“Thanks are in place,” observed Bobbie. “But that’s the way I always +am—always doing something for other people. Now fly away. I’d +advise you to lay your head on your pillow early to-night. Have you far +to go?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said Maya. “Only a short way. I live at the edge of the +beech-woods. Good-by, Bobbie, I’ll never forget you, never, never, so +long as I live. Good-by.”</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">104</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic104.png" width = "317" height = "155" +alt = "Maya and the butterfly"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapVIII" id = "chapVIII"> +CHAPTER VIII</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE BUG AND THE BUTTERFLY</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Her</span> +adventure with the spider gave Maya something to think about. She made +up her mind to be more cautious in the future, not to rush into things +so recklessly. Cassandra’s prudent warnings about the greatest dangers +that threaten the bees, were enough to give one pause; and there were +all sorts of other possibilities, and the world was such a big +place—oh, there was a good deal to make a little bee stop and +think.</p> + +<p>It was in the evening particularly, when twilight fell and the little +bee was all by herself, that one consideration after another stirred her +mind. But the next morning, if the +<span class = "pagenum">105</span> +sun shone, she usually forgot half the things that had bothered her the +night before, and allowed her eagerness for experiences to drive her out +again into the gay whirl of life.</p> + +<p>One day she met a very curious creature. It was angular and flat as a +pancake, but had a rather neat design on its sheath; and whether its +sheath were wings or what, you couldn’t really tell. The odd little +monster sat absolutely still on the shaded leaf of a raspberry bush, its +eyes half closed, apparently sunk in meditation. The scent of the +raspberries spread around it deliciously. Maya wanted to find out what +sort of an animal it was. She flew to the next-door leaf and said +how-do-you-do. The stranger made no reply.</p> + +<p>“How do you do, again?” And Maya gave its leaf a little tap. The flat +object peeled one eye open, turned it on Maya, and said:</p> + +<p>“A bee. The world is full of bees,” and closed its eye again.</p> + +<p>“Unique,” thought Maya, and determined to get at the stranger’s +secret. For now it excited her curiosity more than ever, as people often +do who pay no attention to us. She tried +<span class = "pagenum">106</span> +honey. “I have plenty of honey,” she said. “May I offer you some?” The +stranger opened its one eye and regarded Maya contemplatively a moment +or two. “What is it going to say this time?” Maya wondered.</p> + +<p>This time there was no answer at all. The one eye merely closed +again, and the stranger sat quite still, tight on the leaf, so that you +couldn’t see its legs and you’d have thought it had been pressed down +flat with a thumb.</p> + +<p>Maya realized, of course, that the stranger wanted to ignore her, +but—you know how it is—you don’t like being snubbed, +especially if you haven’t found out what you wanted to find out. It +makes you feel so cheap.</p> + +<p>“Whoever you are,” cried Maya, “permit me to inform you that insects +are in the habit of greeting each other, especially when one of them +happens to be a bee.” The bug sat on without budging. It did not so much +as open its one eye again. “It’s ill,” thought Maya. “How horrid to be +ill on a lovely day like this. That’s why it’s staying in the shade, +too.” She flew over to the bug’s leaf and sat +<span class = "pagenum">107</span> +down beside it. “Aren’t you feeling well?” she asked, so very +friendly.</p> + +<p>At this the funny creature began to move away. “Move” is the only +word to use, because it didn’t walk, or run, or fly, or hop. It went as +if shoved by an invisible hand.</p> + +<p>“It hasn’t any legs. That’s why it’s so cross,” thought Maya.</p> + +<p>When it reached the stem of the leaf it stopped a second, moved on +again, and, to her astonishment, Maya saw that it had left behind a +little brown drop.</p> + +<p>“How <i>very</i> singular,” she thought—and clapped her hand to +her nose and held it tight shut. The veriest stench came from the little +brown drop. Maya almost fainted. She flew away as fast as she could and +seated herself on a raspberry, where she held on to her nose and +shivered with disgust and excitement.</p> + +<p>“Serves you right,” someone above her called, and laughed. “Why take +up with a stink-bug?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t laugh!” cried Maya.</p> + +<p>She looked up. A white butterfly had alighted overhead on a slender, +swaying branch +<span class = "pagenum">108</span> +of the raspberry bush, and was slowly opening and closing its broad +wings—slowly, softly, silently, happy in the sunshine—black +corners to its wings, round black marks in the centre of each wing, four +round black marks in all. Ah, how beautiful, how beautiful! Maya forgot +her vexation. And she was glad, too, to talk to the butterfly. She had +never made the acquaintance of one before even though she had met a +great many.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she said, “you probably are right to laugh. Was that a +stink-bug?”</p> + +<p>“It was,” he replied, still smiling. “The sort of person to keep away +from. You’re probably very young still?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” observed Maya, “I shouldn’t say I was—exactly. I’ve +been through a great deal. But that was the first specimen of the kind I +had ever come across. Can you imagine doing such a thing?”</p> + +<p>The butterfly had to laugh again.</p> + +<p>“You see,” he explained, “stink-bugs like to keep to themselves. They +are not very popular, so they use the odoriferous drop to make people +take notice of them. We’d probably +<span class = "pagenum">109</span> +soon forget the fact of their existence if it were not for the drop: it +serves as a reminder. And they want to be remembered, no matter +how.”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic112.png" width = "247" height = "203" +alt = "Maya talks with the butterfly"> +</p> + +<p>“How lovely, how exquisitely lovely your wings are,” said Maya. “So +delicate and white. May I introduce myself? Maya, of the nation of +bees.”</p> + +<p>The butterfly laid his wings together to look like only one wing +standing straight up in the air. He gave a slight bow.</p> + +<p>“Fred,” he said laconically.</p> + +<p>Maya couldn’t gaze her fill.</p> + +<p>“Fly a little,” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Shall I fly away?”</p> + +<p>“Oh no. I just want to see your great white wings move in the blue +air. But never mind. I can wait till later. Where do you live?”</p> + +<p>“Nowhere specially. A settled home is too much of a nuisance. Life +didn’t get to be really delightful until I turned into a butterfly. +Before that, while I was still a caterpillar, I couldn’t leave the +cabbage the livelong day, and all one did was eat and squabble.”</p> + +<p>“Just what do you mean?” asked Maya, mystified.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">110</span> +<p>“I used to be a caterpillar,” explained Fred.</p> + +<p>“Never!” cried Maya.</p> + +<p>“Now, now, now,” said Fred, pointing both feelers straight at Maya. +“Everyone knows a butterfly is first a caterpillar. Even human beings +know it.”</p> + +<p>Maya was utterly perplexed. Could such a thing be?</p> + +<p>“You must really explain more clearly,” she said. “I couldn’t accept +what you say just so, could I? You wouldn’t expect me to.”</p> + +<p>The butterfly perched beside the little bee on the slender swaying +branch of the raspberry bush, and they rocked together in the morning +wind. He told her how he had begun life as a caterpillar and then, one +day, when he had shed his last caterpillar skin, he came out a pupa or +chrysalis.</p> + +<p>“At the end of a few weeks,” he continued, “I woke up out of my dark +sleep and broke through the wrappings or pupa-case. I can’t tell +you, Maya, what a feeling comes over you when, after a time like that, +you suddenly see the sun again. I felt as though I were melting in +a warm golden ocean, and I loved my +<span class = "pagenum">111</span> +life so that my heart began to pound.”</p> + +<p>“I understand,” said Maya, “I understand. I felt the same way the +first time I left our humdrum city and flew out into the bright scented +world of blossoms.” The little bee was silent a while, thinking of her +first flight.—But then she wanted to know how the butterfly’s +large wings could grow in the small space of the pupa-case.</p> + +<p>Fred explained.</p> + +<p>“The wings are delicately folded together like the petals of a flower +in the bud. When the weather is bright and warm, the flower must open, +it cannot help itself, and its petals unfold. So with my wings, they +were folded up, then unfolded. No one can resist the sun when it +shines.”</p> + +<p>“No, no—one cannot—one cannot resist the sunshine.” Maya +mused, watching the butterfly as he perched in the golden light of the +morning, pure white against the blue sky.</p> + +<p>“People often charge us with being frivolous,” said Fred. “We’re +really happy—just that—just happy. You wouldn’t believe how +seriously I sometimes think about life.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">112</span> +<p>“Tell me what all you think.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Fred, “I think about the future. It’s very interesting to +think about the future.—But I should like to fly now. The meadows +on the hillside are full of yarrow and canterbury bells; everything’s in +bloom. I’d like to be there, you know.”</p> + +<p>This Maya understood, she understood it well, and they said good-by +and flew away in different directions, the white butterfly rocking +silently as if wafted by the gentle wind, little Maya with that uneasy +zoom-zoom of the bees which we hear upon the flowers on fair days and +which we always recall when we think of the summer.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">113</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic113.png" width = "330" height = "163" +alt = "Maya with the bark beetle and the seven-legged daddy-long-legs"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapIX" id = "chapIX"> +CHAPTER IX</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE LOST LEG</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Near</span> +the hole where Maya had set herself up for the summer lived a family of +bark-boring beetles. Fridolin, the father, was an earnest, industrious +man who wanted many children and took immense pains to bring up a large +family. He had done very well: he had fifty energetic sons to fill him +with pride and high hopes. Each had dug his own meandering little tunnel +in the bark of the pine-tree and all were getting on and were +comfortably settled.</p> + +<p>“My wife,” Fridolin said to Maya, after they had known each other +some time, +<span class = "pagenum">114</span> +“has arranged things so that none of my sons interferes with the others. +They are not even acquainted; each goes his own way.”</p> + +<p>Maya knew that human beings were none too fond of Fridolin and his +people, though she herself liked him and liked his opinions and had +found no reason to avoid him. In the morning before the sun arose and +the woods were still asleep, she would hear his fine tapping and boring. +It sounded like a delicate trickling, or as if the tree were breathing +in its sleep. Later she would see the thin brown dust that he had +emptied out of his corridor.</p> + +<p>Once he came at an early hour, as he often did, to wish her +good-morning and ask if she had slept well.</p> + +<p>“Not flying to-day?” he inquired.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s too windy.”</p> + +<p>It was windy. The wind rushed and roared and flung the branches into +a mad tumult. The leaves looked ready to fly away. After each great gust +the sky would brighten, and in the pale light the trees seemed balder. +The pine in which Maya and Fridolin lived shrieked +<span class = "pagenum">115</span> +with the voices of the wind as in a fury of anger and excitement.</p> + +<p>Fridolin sighed.</p> + +<p>“I worked all night,” he told Maya, “all night. But what can you do? +You’ve got to do <i>some</i>thing to get <i>some</i>where. And I’m not +altogether satisfied with this pine; I should have tackled a +fir-tree.” He wiped his brow and smiled in self-pity.</p> + +<p>“How are your children?” asked Maya pleasantly.</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Fridolin, “thank you for your interest. +But”—he hesitated—“but I don’t supervise the way I used to. +Still, I have reason to believe they are all doing well.”</p> + +<p>As he sat there, a little brown man with slightly curtailed +wing-sheaths and a breastplate that looked like a head too large for its +body, Maya thought he was almost comical; but she knew he was a +dangerous beetle who could do immense harm to the mighty trees of the +forest, and if his tribe attacked a tree in numbers then the green +needles were doomed, the tree would turn <ins class = "correction" title += "spelling unchanged">sear</ins> and die. It was utterly +<span class = "pagenum">116</span> +without defenses against the little marauders who destroyed the bark and +the sap-wood. And the sap-wood is necessary to the life of a tree +because it carries the sap up to the very tips of the branches. There +were stories of how whole forests had fallen victims to the race of +boring-beetles. Maya looked at Fridolin reflectively; she was awed into +solemnity at the thought of the great power these little creatures +possessed and of how important they could become.</p> + +<p>Fridolin sighed and said in a worried tone:</p> + +<p>“Ah, life would be beautiful if there were no woodpeckers.”</p> + +<p>Maya nodded.</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed, you’re right. The woodpecker gobbles up every insect he +sees.”</p> + +<p>“If it were only that,” observed Fridolin, “if it were only that he +got the careless people who fool around on the outside, on the bark, I’d +say, ‘Very well, a woodpecker must live too.’ But it seems all +wrong that the bird should follow us right into our corridors into the +remotest corners of our homes.”</p> + +<p>“But he can’t. He’s too big, isn’t he?”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">117</span> +<p>Fridolin looked at Maya with an air of grave importance, lifting his +brows and shaking his head two or three times. It seemed to please him +that he knew something she didn’t know.</p> + +<p>“Too big? What difference does his size make? No, my dear, it’s not +his size we are afraid of; it’s his tongue.”</p> + +<p>Maya made big eyes.</p> + +<p>Fridolin told her about the woodpecker’s tongue: that it was long and +thin, and round as a worm, and barbed and sticky.</p> + +<p>“He can stretch his tongue out ten times my length,” cried the +bark-beetle, flourishing his arm. “You think: ‘now—now he has +reached the limit, he can’t make it the tiniest bit longer.’ But no, he +goes on stretching and stretching it. He pokes it deep into all the +cracks and crevices of the bark, on the chance that he’ll find somebody +sitting there. He even pushes it into our passageways—actually, +into our corridors and chambers. Things stick to it, and that’s the way +he pulls us out of our homes.”</p> + +<p>“I am not a coward,” said Maya, “I don’t +<span class = "pagenum">118</span> +think I am, but what you say makes me creepy.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, <i>you’re</i> all right,” said Fridolin, a little envious, “you +with your sting are safe. A person’ll think twice before he’ll let +you sting his tongue. Anybody’ll tell you that. But how about us +bark-beetles? How do you think we feel? A cousin of mine got +caught. We had just had a little quarrel on account of my wife. +I remember every detail perfectly. My cousin was paying us a visit +and hadn’t yet got used to our ways or our arrangements. All of a sudden +we heard a woodpecker scratching and boring—one of the smaller +species. It must have begun right at our building because as a rule we +hear him beforehand and have time to run to shelter before he +reaches us.</p> + +<p>“Suddenly I heard my poor cousin scream in the dark: ‘Fridolin, I’m +sticking!’ Then all I heard was a short desperate scuffle, followed by +complete silence, and in a few moments the woodpecker was hammering at +the house next door. My poor cousin! Her name was Agatha.”</p> + +<p>“Feel how my heart is beating,” said Maya, +<span class = "pagenum">119</span> +in a whisper. “You oughtn’t to have told it so quickly. My goodness, the +things that do happen!” And the little bee thought of her own adventures +in the past and the accidents that might still happen to her.</p> + +<p>A laugh from Fridolin interrupted her reflections. She looked up in +surprise.</p> + +<p>“See who’s coming,” he cried, “coming up the tree. Here’s the fellow +for you! I tell you, he’s a—but you’ll see.”</p> + +<p>Maya followed the direction of his gaze and saw a remarkable animal +slowly climbing up the trunk. She wouldn’t have believed such a creature +was possible if she had not seen it with her own eyes.</p> + +<p>“Hadn’t we better hide?” she asked, alarm getting the better of +astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Absurd,” replied the bark-beetle, “just sit still and be polite to +the gentleman. He is very learned, really, very scholarly, and what is +more, kind and modest and, like most persons of his type, rather funny. +See what he’s doing now!”</p> + +<p>“Probably thinking,” observed Maya, who couldn’t get over her +astonishment.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">120</span> +<p>“He’s struggling against the wind,” said Fridolin, and laughed. “I +hope his legs don’t get entangled.”</p> + +<p>“Are those long threads really his legs?” asked Maya, opening her +eyes wide. “I’ve never seen the like.”</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the newcomer had drawn near, and Maya got a better view of +him. He looked as though he were swinging in the air, his rotund little +body hung so high on his monstrously long legs, which groped for a +footing on all sides like a movable scaffolding of threads. He stepped +along cautiously, feeling his way; the little brown sphere of his body +rose and sank, rose and sank. His legs were so very long and thin that +one alone would certainly not have been enough to support his body. He +needed all at once, unquestionably. As they were jointed in the middle, +they rose high in the air above him.</p> + +<p>Maya clapped her hands together.</p> + +<p>“Well!” she cried. “Did you ever? Would you have dreamed that such +delicate legs, legs as fine as a hair, could be so nimble and +useful—that one could really use them—and +<span class = "pagenum">121</span> +they’d know what to do? Fridolin, I think it’s wonderful, simply +wonderful.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, bah,” said the bark-beetle. “Don’t take things so seriously. +Just laugh when you see something funny; that’s all.”</p> + +<p>“But I don’t feel like laughing. Often we laugh at something and +later find out it was just because we haven’t understood.”</p> + +<p>By this time the stranger had joined them and was looking down at +Maya from the height of his pointed triangles of legs.</p> + +<p>“Good-morning,” he said, “a real wind-storm—a pretty strong +draught, don’t you think, or—no? You are of a different opinion?” +He clung to the tree as hard as he could.</p> + +<p>Fridolin turned to hide his laughing, but little Maya replied +politely that she quite agreed with him and that was why she had not +gone out flying. Then she introduced herself. The stranger squinted down +at her through his legs.</p> + +<p>“Maya, of the nation of bees,” he repeated. “Delighted, really. +I have heard a good deal about bees.—I myself belong to the +general +<span class = "pagenum">122</span> +family of spiders, species daddy-long-legs, and my name is +Hannibal.”</p> + +<p>The word spider has an evil sound in the ears of all smaller insects, +and Maya could not quite conceal her fright, especially as she was +reminded of her agony in Thekla’s web. Hannibal seemed to take no +notice, so Maya decided, “Well if need be I’ll fly away, and he can +whistle for me; he has no wings and his web is somewhere else.”</p> + +<p>“I am thinking,” said Hannibal, “thinking very hard.—If you +will permit me, I will come a little closer. That big branch there +makes a good shield against the wind.”</p> + +<p>“Why, certainly,” said Maya, making room for him.</p> + +<p>Fridolin said good-by and left. Maya stayed; she was eager to get at +Hannibal’s personality.</p> + +<p>“The many, many different kinds of animals there are in the world,” +she thought. “Every day a fresh discovery.”</p> + +<p>The wind had subsided some, and the sun shone through the branches. +From below rose the song of a robin redbreast, filling the +<span class = "pagenum">123</span> +woods with joy. Maya could see it perched on a branch, could see its +throat swell and pulse with the song as it held its little head raised +up to the light.</p> + +<p>“If only I could sing like that robin redbreast,” she said, “I’d +perch on a flower and keep it up the livelong day.”</p> + +<p>“You’d produce something lovely, you would, with your humming and +buzzing.”</p> + +<p>“The bird looks so happy.”</p> + +<p>“You have great fancies,” said the daddy-long-legs. “Supposing every +animal were to wish he could do something that nature had not fitted him +to do, the world would be all topsy-turvy. Supposing a robin redbreast +thought he had to have a sting—a sting above everything +else—or a goat wanted to fly about gathering honey. Supposing a +frog were to come along and languish for my kind of legs.”</p> + +<p>Maya laughed.</p> + +<p>“That isn’t just what I mean. I mean, it seems lovely to be able to +make all beings as happy as the bird does with his song.—But +goodness gracious!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Mr. Hannibal, you have one +leg too many.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">124</span> +<p>Hannibal frowned and looked into space, vexed.</p> + +<p>“Well, you’ve noticed it,” he said glumly. “But as a matter of +fact—one leg too few, not too many.”</p> + +<p>“Why? Do you usually have eight legs?”</p> + +<p>“Permit me to explain. We spiders have eight legs. We need them all. +Besides, eight is a more aristocratic number. One of my legs got lost. +Too bad about it. However you manage, you make the best of it.”</p> + +<p>“It must be dreadfully disagreeable to lose a leg,” Maya +sympathized.</p> + +<p>Hannibal propped his chin on his hand and arranged his legs to keep +them from being easily counted.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you how it happened. Of course, as usual when there’s +mischief, a human being is mixed up in it. We spiders are careful +and look what we’re doing, but human beings are careless, they grab you +sometimes as though you were a piece of wood. Shall I tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do please,” said Maya, settling herself comfortably. “It would +be awfully interesting. +<span class = "pagenum">125</span> +You must certainly have gone through a good deal.”</p> + +<p>“I should say so,” said Hannibal. “Now listen. We daddy-long-legs, +you know, hunt by night. I was then living in a green garden-house. +It was overgrown with ivy, and there were a number of broken +window-panes, which made it very convenient for me to crawl in and out. +The man came at dark. In one hand he carried his artificial sun, which +he calls lamp, in the other hand a small bottle, under his arm some +paper, and in his pocket another bottle. He put everything down on the +table and began to think, because he wanted to write his thoughts on the +paper.—You must certainly have come across paper in the woods or +in the garden. The black on the paper is what man has +excogitated—excogitated.”</p> + +<p>“Marvelous!” cried Maya, all a-glow that she was to learn so +much.</p> + +<p>“For this purpose,” Hannibal continued, “man needs both bottles. He +inserts a stick into the one and drinks out of the other. The more he +drinks, the better it goes. Of course +<span class = "pagenum">126</span> +it is about us insects that he writes, everything he knows about us, and +he writes strenuously, but the result is not much to boast of, because +up to now man has found out very little in regard to insects. He is +absolutely ignorant of our soul-life and hasn’t the least consideration +for our feelings. You’ll see.”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think well of human beings?” asked Maya.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, yes. But the loss of a leg”—the daddy-long-legs +looked down slantwise—“is apt to embitter one, rather.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Maya.</p> + +<p>“One evening I was sitting on a window-frame as usual, prepared for +the chase, and the man was sitting at the table, his two bottles before +him, trying to produce something. It annoyed me dreadfully that a whole +swarm of little flies and gnats, upon which I depend for my subsistence, +had settled upon the artificial sun and were staring into it in that +crude, stupid, uneducated way of theirs.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” observed Maya, “I think I’d look at a thing like that +myself.”</p> + +<p>“Look, for all I care. But to look and to +<span class = "pagenum">127</span> +stare like an idiot are two entirely different things. Just watch once +and see the silly jig they dance around a lamp. It’s nothing for them to +butt their heads about twenty times. Some of them keep it up until they +burn their wings. And all the time they stare and stare at the +light.”</p> + +<p>“Poor creatures! Evidently they lose their wits.”</p> + +<p>“Then they had better stay outside on the window-frame or under the +leaves. They’re safe from the lamp there, and that’s where I can catch +them.—Well, on that fateful night I saw from my position on the +window-frame that some gnats were lying scattered on the table beside +the lamp drawing their last breath. The man did not seem to notice or +care about them, so I decided to go and take them myself. That’s +perfectly natural, isn’t it?”</p> + +<p>“Perfectly.”</p> + +<p>“And yet, it was my undoing. I crept up the leg of the table, very +softly, on my guard, until I could peep over the edge. The man seemed +dreadfully big. I watched him working. +<span class = "pagenum">128</span> +Then, slowly, very slowly, carefully lifting one leg at a time, +I crossed over to the lamp. As long as I was covered by the bottle +all went well, but I had scarcely turned the corner, when the man looked +up and grabbed me. He lifted me by one of my legs, dangled me in front +of his huge eyes, and said: ‘See what’s here, just see what’s here.’ And +he grinned—the brute!—he grinned with his whole face, as +though it were a laughing matter.”</p> + +<p>Hannibal sighed, and little Maya kept quite still. Her head was in a +whirl.</p> + +<p>“Have human beings such immense eyes?” she asked at last.</p> + +<p>“Please think of <i>me</i> in the position <i>I</i> was in,” cried +Hannibal, vexed. “Try to imagine how I felt. Who’d like to be hanging by +the leg in front of eyes twenty times as big as his own body and a mouth +full of gleaming teeth, each fully twice as big as himself? Well, what +do you think?”</p> + +<p>“Awful! Perfectly awful!”</p> + +<p>“Thank the Lord, my leg broke off. There’s no telling what might have +happened if my +<span class = "pagenum">129</span> +leg had not broken off. I fell to the table, and then I ran, +I ran as fast as my remaining legs would take me, and hid behind +the bottle. There I stood and hurled threats of violence at the man. +They saved me, my threats did, the man was afraid to run after me. +I saw him lay my leg on the white paper, and I watched how it +wanted to escape—which it can’t do without me.”</p> + +<p>“Was it still moving?” asked Maya, prickling at the thought.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Our legs always do move when they’re pulled out. My leg ran, +but I not being there it didn’t know where to run to, so it merely +flopped about aimlessly on the same spot, and the man watched it, +clutching at his nose and smiling—smiling, the heartless +wretch!—at my leg’s sense of duty.”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic132.png" width = "284" height = "157" +alt = "Maya with Hannibal"> +</p> + +<p>“Impossible,” said the little bee, quite scared, “an offen leg can’t +crawl.”</p> + +<p>“An offen leg? <i>What</i> is an offen leg?”</p> + +<p>“A leg that has come off,” explained Maya, staring at him. “Don’t you +know? At home we children used the word offen for anything that had come +off.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">130</span> +<p>“You should drop your nursery slang when you’re out in the world and +in the presence of cultured people,” said Hannibal severely. “But it +<i>is</i> true that our legs totter long after they have been torn from +our bodies.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t believe it without proof.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think I’ll tear one of my legs off to satisfy you?” +Hannibal’s tone was ugly. “I see you’re not a fit person to associate +with. Nobody, I’d like you to know, <i>no</i>body has ever doubted my +word before.”</p> + +<p>Maya was terribly put out. She couldn’t understand what had upset the +daddy-long-legs so, or what dreadful thing she had done.</p> + +<p>“It isn’t altogether easy to get along with strangers,” she thought. +“They don’t think the way we do and don’t see that we mean no harm.” She +was depressed and cast a troubled look at the spider with his long legs +and soured expression.</p> + +<p>“Really, someone ought to come and eat you up.”</p> + +<p>Hannibal had evidently mistaken Maya’s good nature for weakness. For +now something unusual happened to the little bee. Suddenly +<span class = "pagenum">131</span> +her depression passed and gave way, not to alarm or timidity, but to a +calm courage. She straightened up, lifted her lovely, transparent wings, +uttered her high clear buzz, and said with a gleam in her eyes:</p> + +<p>“I am a bee, Mr. Hannibal.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” said he, and without saying good-by turned and +ran down the tree-trunk as fast as a person can run who has seven +legs.</p> + +<p>Maya had to laugh, willy-nilly. From down below Hannibal began to +scold.</p> + +<p>“You’re bad. You threaten helpless people, you threaten them with +your sting when you know they’re handicapped by a misfortune and can’t +get away fast. But your hour is coming, and when you’re in a tight place +you’ll think of me and be sorry.” Hannibal disappeared under the leaves +of the coltsfoot on the ground. His last words had not reached the +little bee.</p> + +<p>The wind had almost died away, and the day promised to be fine. White +clouds sailed aloft in a deep, deep blue, looking happy and serene like +good thoughts of the Lord. Maya +<span class = "pagenum">132</span> +was cheered. She thought of the rich shaded meadows by the woods and of +the sunny slopes beyond the lake. A blithe activity must have begun +there by this time. In her mind she saw the slim grasses waving and the +purple iris that grew in the rills at the edge of the woods. From the +flower of an iris you could look across to the mysterious night of the +pine-forest and catch its cool breath of melancholy. You knew that its +forbidding silence, which transformed the sunshine into a reddish +half-light of sleep, was the home of the fairy tale.</p> + +<p>Maya was already flying. She had started off instinctively, in answer +to the call of the meadows and their gay carpeting of flowers. It was a +joy to be alive.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">133</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic133.png" width = "313" height = "152" +alt = "Maya with the mosquito"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapX" id = "chapX"> +CHAPTER X</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE WONDERS OF THE NIGHT</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Thus</span> +the days and weeks of her young life passed for little Maya among the +insects in a lovely summer world—a happy roving in garden and +meadow, occasional risks and many joys. For all that, she often missed +the companions of her early childhood and now and again suffered a pang +of homesickness, an ache of longing for her people and the kingdom she +had left. There were hours, too, when she yearned for regular, useful +work and association with friends of her own kind.</p> + +<p>However, at bottom she had a restless nature, little Maya had, and +was scarcely ready +<span class = "pagenum">134</span> +to settle down for good and live in the community of the bees; she +wouldn’t have felt comfortable. Often among animals as well as human +beings there are some who cannot conform to the ways of the others. +Before we condemn them we must be careful and give them a chance to +prove themselves. For it is not always laziness or stubbornness that +makes them different. Far from it. At the back of their peculiar urge is +a deep longing for something higher or better than what every-day life +has to offer, and many a time young runaways have grown up into good, +sensible, experienced men and women.</p> + +<p>Little Maya was a pure, sensitive soul, and her attitude to the big, +beautiful world came of a genuine eagerness for knowledge and a great +delight in the glories of creation.</p> + +<p>Yet it is hard to be alone even when you are happy, and the more Maya +went through, the greater became her yearning for companionship and +love. She was no longer so very young; she had grown into a strong, +superb creature with sound, bright wings, a sharp, dangerous sting, +and a highly developed sense +<span class = "pagenum">135</span> +of both the pleasures and the hazards of her life. Through her own +experience she had gathered information and stored up wisdom, which she +now often wished she could apply to something of real value. There were +days when she was ready to return to the hive and throw herself at the +queen’s feet and sue for pardon and honorable reinstatement. But a +great, burning desire held her back—the desire to know human +beings. She had heard so many contradictory things about them that she +was confused rather than enlightened. Yet she had a feeling that in the +whole of creation there were no beings more powerful or more intelligent +or more sublime than they.</p> + +<p>A few times in her wanderings she had seen people, but only from +afar, from high up in the air—big and little people, black people, +white people, red people, and such as dressed in many colors. She had +never ventured close. Once she had caught the glimmer of red near a +brook, and thinking it was a bed of flowers had flown down. She found a +human being fast asleep among the brookside blossoms. It had golden hair +and a pink face and wore a +<span class = "pagenum">136</span> +red dress. It was dreadfully large, of course, but still it looked so +good and sweet that Maya thrilled, and tears came to her eyes. She lost +all sense of her whereabouts; she could do nothing but gaze and gaze +upon the slumbering presence. All the horrid things she had ever heard +against man seemed utterly impossible. Lies they must have +been—mean lies that she had been told against creatures as +charming as this one asleep in the shade of the whispering +birch-trees.</p> + +<p>After a while a mosquito came and buzzed greetings.</p> + +<p>“Look!” cried Maya, hot with excitement and delight. “Look, just look +at that human being there. How good, how beautiful! Doesn’t it fill you +with enthusiasm?”</p> + +<p>The mosquito gave Maya a surprised stare, then turned slowly round to +glance at the object of her admiration.</p> + +<p>“Yes, it <i>is</i> good. I just tasted it. I stung it. Look, my body +is shining red with its blood.”</p> + +<p>Maya had to press her hand to her heart, so startled was she by the +mosquito’s daring.</p> + +<p>“Will it die?” she cried. “Where did you +<span class = "pagenum">137</span> +wound it? How could you? How could you screw up your courage to sting +it? And how vile! Why, you’re a beast of prey!”</p> + +<p>The mosquito tittered.</p> + +<p>“Why, it’s only a very little human being,” it answered in its high, +thin voice. “It’s the size called girl—the size at which the legs +are covered half way up with a separate colored casing. My sting, of +course, goes through the casing but usually doesn’t reach the +skin.—Your ignorance is really stupendous. Do you actually think +that human beings are good? I haven’t come across one who willingly +let me take the tiniest drop of his blood.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know very much about human beings, I admit,” said Maya +humbly.</p> + +<p>“But of all the insects you bees have most to do with human beings. +That’s a well-known fact.”</p> + +<p>“I left our kingdom,” Maya confessed timidly. “I didn’t like it. +I wanted to learn about the outside world.”</p> + +<p>“Well, well, what do you think of that!” The mosquito drew a step +nearer. “How do you like your free-lancing? I must say, +I admire +<span class = "pagenum">138</span> +you for your independence. I for one would never consent to serve +human beings.”</p> + +<p>“But they serve us too!” said Maya, who couldn’t bear a slight to be +put upon her people.</p> + +<p>“Maybe.—To what nation do you belong?”</p> + +<p>“I come of the nation in the castle park. The ruling queen is Helen +VIII.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed,” said the mosquito, and bowed low. “An enviable lineage. My +deepest respects.—There was a revolution in your kingdom not so +long ago, wasn’t there? I heard it from the messengers of the rebel +swarm. Am I right?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maya, proud and happy that her nation was so respected +and renowned. Homesickness for her people awoke again, deep down in her +heart, and she wished she could do something good and great for her +queen and country. Carried away on the wings of this dream, she forgot +to ask about human beings. Or, like as not, she refrained from +questions, feeling that the mosquito would not tell her things she would +be glad to hear. The mite of a creature impressed her as a saucy +<span class = "pagenum">139</span> +Miss, and people of her kind usually had nothing good to say of others. +Besides, she soon flew away.</p> + +<p>“I’m going to take one more drink,” she called back to Maya. “Later I +and my friends are going flying in the light of the westering sun. Then +we’ll be sure to have good weather to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Maya made off quickly. She couldn’t bear to stay and see the mosquito +hurt the sleeping child. And how could she do this thing and not perish? +Hadn’t Cassandra said: “If you sting a human being, you will die?”</p> + +<p>Maya still remembered every detail of this incident with the child +and the mosquito, but her craving to know human beings well had not been +stilled. She made up her mind to be bolder and never stop trying until +she had reached her goal.</p> + +<hr class = "mid"> + +<p>At last Maya’s longing to know human beings was to be satisfied, and +in a way far, far lovelier and more wonderful than she had dreamed.</p> + +<p>Once, on a warm evening, having gone to +<span class = "pagenum">140</span> +sleep earlier than usual, she woke up suddenly in the middle of the +night—something that had never happened to her before. When she +opened her eyes, her astonishment was indescribable: her little bedroom +was all steeped in a quiet bluish radiance. It came down through the +entrance, and the entrance itself shone as if hung with a silver-blue +curtain.</p> + +<p>Maya did not dare to budge at first, though not because she was +frightened. No. Somehow, along with the light came a rare, lovely +peacefulness, and outside her room the air was filled with a sound +finer, more harmonious than any music she had ever heard. After a time +she rose timidly, awed by the glamour and the strangeness of it all, and +looked out. The whole world seemed to lie under the spell of an +enchantment. Everything was sparkling and glittering in pure silver. The +trunks of the birch-trees, the slumbering leaves were overlaid with +silver. The grass, which from her height seemed to lie under delicate +veils, was set with a thousand pale pearls. All things near and far, the +silent distances, were shrouded in this soft, bluish sheen.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">141</span> +<p>“This must be the night,” Maya whispered and folded her hands.</p> + +<p>High up in the heavens, partly veiled by the leaves of a beech-tree, +hung a full clear disk of silver, from which the radiance poured down +that beautified the world. And then Maya saw countless bright, sharp +little lights surrounding the moon in the heavens—oh, so still and +beautiful, unlike any shining things she had ever seen before. To think +she beheld the night, the moon, and the stars—the wonders, the +lovely wonders of the night! She had heard of them but never believed in +them. It was almost too much.</p> + +<p>Then the sound rose again, the strange night sound that must have +awakened her. It came from nearby, filling the welkin, a soaring +chirp with a silvery ring that matched the silver on the trees and +leaves and grass and seemed to come rilling down from the moon on the +beams of silver light.</p> + +<p>Maya looked about for the source, in vain; in the mysterious drift of +light and shadow it was difficult to make out objects in clear outline, +everything was draped so mysteriously; +<span class = "pagenum">142</span> +and yet everything showed up true and in such heroic beauty.</p> + +<p>Her room could keep her no longer; out she had to fly into this new +splendor, the night splendor.</p> + +<p>“The good Lord will take care of me,” she thought, “I am not bent +upon wrong.”</p> + +<p>As she was about to fly off through the silver light to her favorite +meadow, now lying full under the moon, she saw a winged creature alight +on a beech-tree leaf not far away. Scarcely alighted, it raised its head +to the moon, lifted its narrow wings, and drew the edge of one against +the other, for all the world as though it were playing on a violin. And +sure enough, the sound came, the silvery chirp that filled the whole +moonlit world with melody<ins class = "correction" title = "text has unneeded close quote">. </ins></p> + +<p>“Exquisite,” whispered Maya, “heavenly, heavenly, heavenly.”</p> + +<p>She flew over to the leaf. The night was so mild and warm that she +did not notice it was cooler than by day. When she touched the leaf, the +chirper broke off playing abruptly, and to Maya it seemed as if there +had never +<span class = "pagenum">143</span> +been such a stillness before, so profound was the hush that followed. It +was uncanny. Through the dark leaves filtered the light, white and +cool.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic152.png" width = "289" height = "153" +alt = "Maya talking with the cricket"> +</p> + +<p>“Good night,” said Maya, politely, thinking “good night” was the +greeting for the night like “good morning” for the morning. “Please +excuse me for interrupting, but the music you make is so fascinating +that I had to find out where it came from.”</p> + +<p>The chirper stared at Maya, wide-eyed.</p> + +<p>“What sort of a crawling creature are you?” it asked after some +moments had passed. “I have never met one like you before.”</p> + +<p>“I am not a crawling insect. I am Maya, of the nation of bees.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, of the nation of bees. Indeed ... you live by day, don’t you? +I have heard of your race from the hedgehog. He told me that in the +evening he eats the dead bodies that are thrown out of your hive.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maya, with a faint chill of apprehension, “that’s so; +Cassandra told me about him; she heard of him from the sentinels. He +comes when twilight falls and +<span class = "pagenum">144</span> +snouts in the grass looking for dead bodies.—But do you associate +with the hedgehog? Why, he’s an awful brute.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think so. We tree-crickets get along with him splendidly. We +call him Uncle. Of course he always tries to catch us, but he never +succeeds, so we have great fun teasing him. Everybody has to live, +doesn’t he? Just so he doesn’t live off me, what do I care?”</p> + +<p>Maya shook her head. She didn’t agree. But not caring to insult the +cricket by contradicting, she changed the subject.</p> + +<p>“So you’re a tree-cricket?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, a snowy tree-cricket.—But I must play, so please don’t +keep me any longer. It’s full moon, a wonderful night. I must +play.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, do make an exception this once. You play all the +time.—Tell me about the night.”</p> + +<p>“A midsummer night is the loveliest in the world,” answered the +cricket. “It fills the heart with rapture.—But what my music +doesn’t tell you I shan’t be able to explain. Why <i>need</i> everything +be explained? Why +<span class = "pagenum">145</span> +<i>know</i> everything? We poor creatures can find out only the tiniest +bit about existence. Yet we can <i>feel</i> the glory of the whole wide +world.” And the cricket set up its happy silvery strumming. Heard from +close by, where Maya sat, the music was overpowering in its +loudness.</p> + +<p>The little bee sat quite still in the blue summer night listening and +musing deeply about life and creation.</p> + +<p>Silence fell. There was a faint whirr, and Maya saw the cricket fly +out into the moonlight.</p> + +<p>“The night makes one feel sad,” she reflected.</p> + +<p>Her flowery meadow drew her now. She flew off.</p> + +<p>At the edge of the brook stood the tall irises brokenly reflected in +the running water. A glorious sight. The moonlight was whirled +along in the braided current, the wavelets winked and whispered, the +irises seemed to lean over asleep. “Asleep from sheer delight,” thought +the little bee. She dropped down on a blue petal in the full light of +the +<span class = "pagenum">146</span> +moon and could not take her eyes from the living waters of the brook, +the quivering flash, the flashing come and go of countless sparks. On +the bank opposite, the birch-trees glittered as if hung with the +stars.</p> + +<p>“Where is all that water flowing to?” she wondered. “The cricket is +right. We know so little about the world.”</p> + +<p>Of a sudden a fine little voice rose in song from the flower of an +iris close beside her, ringing like a pure, clear bell, different from +any earthly sound that Maya knew. Her heart throbbed, she held her +breath.</p> + +<p>“Oh, what is going to happen? What am I going to see now?”</p> + +<p>The iris swayed gently. One of the petals curved in at the edge, and +Maya saw a tiny snow-white human hand holding on to the flower’s rim +with its wee little fingers. Then a small blond head arose, and then a +delicate luminous body in white garments. A human being in +miniature was coming up out of the iris.</p> + +<a name = "plate2" id = "plate2"> </a> +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/plate2.jpg" width = "424" height = "597" +alt = "see caption"> +</p> + +<p class = "caption"> +A human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris</p> + +<p>Words cannot tell Maya’s awe and rapture. She sat rigid.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">147</span> +<p>The tiny being climbed to the edge of the blossom, lifted its arms up +to the moonlight, and looked out into the bright shining night with a +smile of bliss lighting up its face. Then a faint quiver shook its +luminous body, and from its shoulders two wings unfolded, whiter than +the moonlight, pure as snow, rising above its blond head and reaching +down to its feet. How lovely it was, how exquisitely lovely. Nothing +that Maya had ever seen compared with it in loveliness.</p> + +<p>Standing there in the moonlight, holding its hands up to heaven, the +luminous little being lifted its voice again and sang. The song rang out +in the night, and Maya understood the words.</p> + +<div class = "poem"> +<p>My home is Light. The crystal bowl</p> +<p class = "indent">Of Heaven’s blue, I love it so!</p> +<p class = "indent">Both Death and Life will change, I know,</p> +<p>But not my soul, my living soul.</p> + +<p class = "stanza"> +My soul is that which breathes anew</p> +<p class = "indent">From all of loveliness and grace;</p> +<p class = "indent">And as it flows from God’s own face,</p> +<p>It flows from His creations, too.</p> +</div> + +<span class = "pagenum">148</span> +<p>Maya burst into sobs. What it was that made her so sad and yet so +happy, she could not have told.</p> + +<p>The little human being turned around.</p> + +<p>“Who is crying?” he asked in his chiming voice.</p> + +<p>“It’s only me,” stammered Maya. “Excuse me for interrupting you.”</p> + +<p>“But why are you crying?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know. Perhaps just because you are so beautiful. Who are +you? Oh, do tell me, if I am not asking too much. You are an angel, +aren’t you? You must be.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said the little creature, quite serious. “I am only a +sprite, a flower-sprite.—But, dear little bee, what are you +doing out here in the meadow so late at night?”</p> + +<p>The sprite flew over to a curving iris blade beside Maya and regarded +her long and kindly from his swaying perch in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>Maya told him all about herself, what she had done, what she knew, +and what she longed for. And while she spoke, his eyes never left her, +those large dark eyes glowing in the white +<span class = "pagenum">149</span> +fairy face under the golden hair that ever and anon shone like silver in +the moonlight.</p> + +<p>When she finished he stroked her head and looked at her so warmly and +lovingly that the little bee, beside herself with joy, had to lower her +gaze.</p> + +<p>“We sprites,” he explained, “live seven nights, but we must stay in +the flower in which we are born, else we die at dawn.”</p> + +<p>Maya opened her eyes wide in terror.</p> + +<p>“Then hurry, hurry! Fly back into your flower!”</p> + +<p>The, sprite shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>“Too late.—But listen. I have more to tell you. Most of us +sprites are glad to leave our flowers never to return, because a great +happiness is connected with our leaving. We are endowed with a +remarkable power: before we die, we can fulfill the dearest wish of the +first creature we meet. It is when we make up our minds seriously to +leave the flower for the purpose of making someone happy that our wings +grow.”</p> + +<p>“How wonderful!” cried Maya. “I’d leave the flower too, then. It must +be lovely to fulfill +<span class = "pagenum">150</span> +another person’s wish.” That <i>she</i> was the first being whom the +sprite on his flight from the flower had met, did not occur to her. “And +then—must you die?”</p> + +<p>The sprite nodded, but not sadly this time.</p> + +<p>“We live to see the dawn still,” he said, “but when the dew falls, we +are drawn into the fine cobwebby veils that float above the grass and +the flowers of the meadows. Haven’t you often noticed that the veils +shine white as though a light were inside them? It’s the sprites, their +wings and their garments. When the light rises we change into dew-drops. +The plants drink us and we become a part of their growing and blooming +until in time we rise again as sprites from out their flowers.”</p> + +<p>“Then you were once another sprite?” asked Maya, tense, breathless +with interest.</p> + +<p>The earnest eyes said yes.</p> + +<p>“But I have forgotten my earlier existence. We forget everything in +our flower-sleep.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what a lovely fate!”</p> + +<p>“It is the same as that of all earthly creatures, +<span class = "pagenum">151</span> +when you really come to think of it, even if it isn’t always flowers out +of which they wake up from their sleep of death. But we won’t talk of +that to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m so happy!” cried Maya.</p> + +<p>“Then you haven’t got a wish? You’re the first person I’ve met, you +know, and I possess the power to grant your dearest wish.”</p> + +<p>“I? But I’m only a bee. No, it’s too much. It would be too great a +joy. I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve that you should be so +good to me.”</p> + +<p>“No one deserves the good and the beautiful. The good and the +beautiful come to us like the sunshine.”</p> + +<p>Maya’s heart beat stormily. Oh, she did have a wish, a burning wish, +but she didn’t dare confess it. The elf seemed to guess; he smiled so +you couldn’t keep anything a secret from him.</p> + +<p>“Well?” He stroked his golden hair off his pure forehead.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to know human beings at their best and most beautiful,” +said the little bee. She spoke quickly and hotly. She was afraid +<span class = "pagenum">152</span> +she would be told that so great a wish could not be granted.</p> + +<p>But the sprite drew himself up, his expression was serious and +serene, his eyes shone with confidence. He took Maya’s trembling hand +and said:</p> + +<p>“Come. We’ll fly together. Your wish shall be granted.”</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">153</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic153.png" width = "315" height = "156" +alt = "Maya and the sprite"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXI" id = "chapXI"> +CHAPTER XI</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">WITH THE SPRITE</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">And</span> +so Maya and the flower-sprite started off together in the bright +mid-summer night, flying low over the blossomy meadow. His white +reflection crossing the brook shone as though a star were gliding +through the water.</p> + +<p>How happy the little bee was to confide herself to this gracious +being! Whatever he were to do, wherever he were to lead her would be +good and right, she felt. She would have liked to ask him a thousand +questions had she dared.</p> + +<p>As they were passing between a double row of high poplar-trees, +something whirred +<span class = "pagenum">154</span> +above them; a dark moth, as big and strong as a bird, crossed their +way.</p> + +<p>“One moment, wait one moment, please,” the sprite called.</p> + +<p>Maya was surprised to see how readily the moth responded.</p> + +<p>All three alighted on a high poplar branch, from which there was a +far view out upon the tranquil, moonlit landscape. The quaking leaves +whispered delicately. The moth, perching directly opposite Maya in the +full light of the moon, slowly lifted his spread wings and dropped them +again, softly, as if gently fanning—fanning a cool breath upon +someone. Broad, diagonal stripes of a gorgeous bright blue marked his +wings, his black head was covered as with dark velvet, his face was like +a strangely mysterious mask, out of which glowed a pair of dark eyes. +How wonderful were the creatures of the night! A little cold shiver +ran through Maya, who felt she was dreaming the strangest dream of her +life.</p> + +<p>“You are beautiful,” she said to the moth, “beautiful, really.” She +was awed and solemn.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">155</span> +<p>“Who is your companion?” the moth asked the sprite.</p> + +<p>“A bee. I met her just as I was leaving my flower.”</p> + +<p>The moth seemed to realize what that meant. He looked at Maya almost +enviously.</p> + +<p>“You fortunate creature!” he said in a low, serious, musing tone, +shaking his head to and fro.</p> + +<p>“Are you sad?” asked Maya out of the warmth of her heart.</p> + +<p>The moth shook his head.</p> + +<p>“No, not sad.” His voice sounded friendly and grateful, and he gave +Maya such a kind look that she would have liked to strike up a +friendship with him then and there.</p> + +<p>“Is the bat still abroad, or has he gone to rest?” This was the +question for which the sprite had stopped the moth.</p> + +<p>“Oh, he’s gone to rest long ago. You want to know, do you, on account +of your companion?”</p> + +<p>The sprite nodded. Maya was dying to find out what a bat was, but the +sprite seemed to be in a hurry. With a charming gesture of +<span class = "pagenum">156</span> +restlessness he tossed his shining hair back from his forehead.</p> + +<p>“Come, Maya,” he said, “we must hurry. The night is so short.”</p> + +<p>“Shall I carry you part of the way?” asked the moth.</p> + +<p>The sprite thanked him but declined. “Some other time!” he +called.</p> + +<p>“Then it will be never,” thought Maya as they flew away, “because at +dawn the flower-sprite must die.”</p> + +<p>The moth remained on the leaf looking after them until the glimmer of +the fairy garments grew smaller and smaller and finally sank into the +depths of the blue distance. Then he turned his face slowly and surveyed +his great dark wings with their broad blue stripes. He sank into +revery.</p> + +<p>“So often I have heard that I am gray and ugly,” he said to himself, +“and that my dress is not to be compared with the superb robes of the +butterfly. But the little bee saw only what is beautiful in +me.—And she asked me if I was sad. I wonder whether I am or +not.—No, I am not sad,” he decided, “not now.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">157</span> +<p>Meanwhile Maya and the flower-sprite flew through the dense shrubbery +of a garden. The glory of it in the dimmed moonlight was beyond the +power of mortal lips to say. An intoxicatingly sweet cool breath of dew +and slumbering flowers transformed all things into unutterable +blessings. The lilac grapes of the acacias sparkled in freshness, the +June rose-tree looked like a small blooming heaven hung with red lamps, +the white stars of the jasmine glowed palely, sadly, and poured out +their perfume as if, in this one hour, to make a gift of their all.</p> + +<p>Maya was dazed. She pressed the sprite’s hand and looked at him. +A light of bliss shone from his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Who could have dreamed of this!” whispered the little bee.</p> + +<p>Just then she saw something that sent a pang through her.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” she cried, “look! A star has fallen! It’s straying about and +can’t find its way back to its place in the sky.”</p> + +<p>“That’s a firefly,” said the flower-sprite, without a smile.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">158</span> +<p>Now, in the midst of her amazement, Maya realized for the first time +why the sprite seemed so dear and kind. He never laughed at her +ignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong.</p> + +<p>“They are odd little creatures,” the sprite continued. “They carry +their own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven the +dark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn’t shine through. So +firefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. Later, when we +come to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one of +them.”</p> + +<p>“Why?” asked Maya.</p> + +<p>“You’ll soon see.”</p> + +<p>By this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown with +jasmine and woodbine. They descended almost to the ground. From close +by, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering. The +flower-sprite beckoned to a firefly.</p> + +<p>“Would you be good enough,” he asked, “to give us a little light? We +have to push through these dark leaves here; we want to +<span class = "pagenum">159</span> +get to the inside of the jasmine-arbor.”</p> + +<p>“But your glow is much brighter than mine.”</p> + +<p>“I think so, too,” put in Maya, more to hide her excitement than +anything else.</p> + +<p>“I must wrap myself up in a leaf,” explained the sprite,<ins class = +"correction" title = "missing quotation mark"> “</ins>else the human +beings would see me and be frightened. We sprites appear to human beings +only in their dreams.”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said the firefly. “I am at your service. I will do what I +can.—Won’t the great beast with you hurt me?”</p> + +<p>The sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him.</p> + +<p>The sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam of +his white garments was completely hidden. Then he picked a little +bluebell from the grass and put it on his shining head like a helmet. +The only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small that +surely no one would notice it. He asked the firefly to perch on his +shoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keep +the dazzle out of his eyes.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">160</span> +<p>“Come now,” he said, taking Maya’s hand. “We had better climb up +right here.”</p> + +<p>The little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and as +they clambered up the vine, she asked:</p> + +<p>“Do human beings dream when they sleep?”</p> + +<p>“Not only then. They dream sometimes even when they are awake. They +sit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward, +and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the very +heavens. Their dreams are always lovelier than life. That’s why we +appear to them in their dreams.”</p> + +<p>The sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a small +blooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed Maya ahead.</p> + +<p>“Look down,” he said softly, “you’ll see what you have been wishing +to see.”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic162.png" width = "256" height = "192" +alt = "Maya and the sprite watching two humans"> +</p> + +<p>The little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench in +the shadows cast by the moonlight—a boy and a girl, the girl with +her head leaning on the boy’s shoulder, and the boy holding his arm +around the girl +<span class = "pagenum">161</span> +as if to protect her. They sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyed +into the night. It was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. Only +from a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowly +the moonlight drifted through the leaves.</p> + +<p>Maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl’s face. +Although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by the +hidden radiance of a great happiness. Above her large eyes lay golden +hair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested the +heavenly sheen of the midsummer night. From her red lips, slightly +parted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted to +offer everything that was hers to the man by her side for his +happiness.</p> + +<p>And now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered a +magical something that brought a smile to his face such as Maya thought +no earthly being could wear. In his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigor +as if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortune +were banished forever from the face of the earth.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">162</span> +<p>Maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply. +Her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the two +human beings was also hers.</p> + +<p>“Now I have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will ever +behold,” she whispered to herself. “I know now that human beings are +most beautiful when they are in love.”</p> + +<p>How long Maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost in +looking at the boy and girl, she did not know. When she turned round, +the firefly’s lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. Through +the doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizon +showed a narrow streak of red.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">163</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic163.png" width = "313" height = "154" +alt = "Maya with the ladybird beetle"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXII" id = "chapXII"> +CHAPTER XII</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">ALOIS, LADYBIRD AND POET</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">The</span> +sun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when Maya awoke in +her woodland retreat. In the first moments, the moonlight, the chirping +of the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boy +and the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of a +delicious dream. Yet here it was almost midday; and she remembered +slipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. So it had all been +real, she <i>had</i> spent the night with the flower-sprite and +<i>had</i> seen the two human beings, with their arms round each other, +in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">164</span> +<p>The sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind was +stirring, and Maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. Ah, +what these knew, and what <i>she</i> knew! So proud was she of the great +thing that had happened to her that she couldn’t get out to the others +fast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks.</p> + +<p>But in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. Nothing was +changed; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. The insects came, said +how-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustling +activity; the insects, birds and butterflies hopped, flew and flitted in +the hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers.</p> + +<p>Sadness fell upon Maya. There was no one in the world to share her +joys and sorrows. She couldn’t make up her mind to fly over and join the +others in the meadow. No, she would go to the woods. The woods were +serious and solemn. They suited her mood.</p> + +<p>How many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of the +woods, no one suspects who hurries unobservant along the +<span class = "pagenum">165</span> +beaten tracks. You must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, or +lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall +grasses and across the thick moss. Under the shaded leaves of the +plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of +stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like +serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full +of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures.</p> + +<p>Maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between the +dark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. She followed a narrow +trail in the grass, which made a clear path through thicket and +clearing. Now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, so +deep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery; +but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and green +above the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry.</p> + +<p>After a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-arched +portals; before Maya’s eyes lay a wide field of grain in the +<span class = "pagenum">166</span> +golden sunshine. Butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. She +alighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field and +gazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillity +of the placid day. It rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, which +blew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world.</p> + +<p>Under the birch-tree a few small brown butterflies, using the +butterfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner, +a favorite game with butterfly-children. Maya watched them a +while.</p> + +<p>“It must be lots of fun,” she thought, “and the children in the hive +might be taught to play it, too. The cells would do for +corners.—But Cassandra, I suppose, wouldn’t permit it. She’s +so strict.”</p> + +<p>Ah, now Maya felt sad again. Because she had thought of home. And she +was about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someone +beside her say:</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic171.png" width = "252" height = "174" +alt = "Maya and Alois go different ways"> +</p> + +<p>“Good morning. You’re a beast, it seems to me.”</p> + +<p>Maya turned with a start.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">167</span> +<p>“No,” she said, “decidedly not.”</p> + +<p>There sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cotta +half-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, a minute +black head and bright little eyes. Peeping from under the dotted dome +and supporting it as best they could Maya detected thin legs fine as +threads. In spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great liking +to the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm.</p> + +<p>“May I ask who you are? I myself am Maya of the nation of bees.”</p> + +<p>“Do you mean to insult me? You have no reason to.”</p> + +<p>“But why should I? I don’t know you, really I don’t.” Maya was quite +upset.</p> + +<p>“It’s easy to <i>say</i> you don’t know me.—Well, I’ll jog your +memory. Count.” And the little rotundity began to wheel round +slowly.</p> + +<p>“You mean I’m to count your dots?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if you please.”</p> + +<p>“Seven,” said Maya.</p> + +<p>“Well?—Well? You still don’t know. All right then, I’ll tell +you. I’m called exactly +<span class = "pagenum">168</span> +according to what you counted. The scientific name of our family is +Septempunctata. <i>Septem</i> is Latin for seven, <i>punctata</i> is +Latin for dots, points, you see. Our common name is ladybird, my own +name is Alois, I am a poet by profession. You know our common name, +of course.”</p> + +<p>Maya, afraid of hurting Alois’ feelings, didn’t dare to +say no.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said he, “I live by the sunshine, by the peace of the day, and +by the love of mankind.”</p> + +<p>“But don’t you eat, too?” asked Maya, quite astonished.</p> + +<p>“Of course. Plant-lice. Don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“No. That would be—that is....”</p> + +<p>“Is what? Is what?”</p> + +<p>“Not—usual,” said Maya shyly.</p> + +<p>“Of course, of course!” cried Alois, trying to raise one shoulder, +but not succeeding, on account of the firm set of his dome. “As a +bourgeoise you would, of course, do only what is usual. We poets would +not get very far that way.—Have you time?”</p> + +<p>“Why, yes,” said Maya.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">169</span> +<p>“Then I’ll recite you one of my poems. Sit real still and close your +eyes, so that nothing distracts your attention. The poem is called +<i>Man’s Finger</i>, and is about a personal experience. Are you +listening?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, to every word.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then:</p> + +<div class = "poem"> +<p>“‘Since you did not do me wrong,</p> +<p class = "indent">That you found me, doesn’t matter.</p> +<p>You are rounded, you are long;</p> +<p class = "indent">Up above you wear a flatter,</p> +<p class = "indent">Pointed, polished sheath or platter</p> +<p>Which you move as swift as light,</p> +<p>But below you’re fastened tight!’”</p> +</div> + +<p>“Well?” asked Alois after a short pause. There were tears in his eyes +and a quaver in his voice.</p> + +<p>“<i>Man’s Finger</i> gripped me very hard,” replied Maya in some +embarrassment. She really knew much lovelier poems.</p> + +<p>“How do you find the form?” Alois questioned with a smile of fine +melancholy. He seemed to be overwhelmed by the effect he had +produced.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">170</span> +<p>“Long and round. You yourself said so in the poem.”</p> + +<p>“I mean the artistic form, the form of my verse.”</p> + +<p>“Oh—oh, yes. Yes, I thought it was very good.”</p> + +<p>“It is, isn’t it!” cried Alois. “What you mean to say is that +<i>Man’s Finger</i> may be ranked among the best poems you know of, and +one must go way back in literature before one comes across anything like +it. The prime requisite in art is that it should contain something new, +which is what most poets forget. And bigness, too. Don’t you agree +with me?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly,” said Maya, “I think....”</p> + +<p>“The firm belief you express in my importance as a poet really +overwhelms me. I thank you.—But I must be going now, for +solitude is the poet’s pride. Farewell.”</p> + +<p>“Farewell,” echoed Maya, who really didn’t know just what the little +fellow had been after.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she thought, “<i>he</i> knows. Perhaps he’s not full grown +yet; he certainly isn’t large.” She looked after him, as he hastened +<span class = "pagenum">171</span> +up the branch. His wee legs were scarcely visible; he looked as though +he were moving on low rollers.</p> + +<p>Maya turned her gaze away, back to the golden field of grain over +which the butterflies were playing. The field and the butterflies gave +her ever so much more pleasure than the poetry of Alois, ladybird and +poet.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">172</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic172.png" width = "314" height = "158" +alt = "Maya with the millipede"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXIII" id = "chapXIII"> +CHAPTER XIII</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE FORTRESS</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">How</span> +happily the day had begun and how miserably it was to end!</p> + +<p>Before the horror swept upon her, Maya had formed a very remarkable +acquaintance. It was in the afternoon near a big old water-butt. She was +sitting amid the scented elder blossoms, which lay mirrored in the +placid dark surface of the butt, and a robin redbreast was warbling +overhead, so sweetly and merrily that Maya thought it was a shame, +a crying shame that she, a bee, could not make friends with +the charming songsters. The trouble was, they were too big and ate +you up.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">173</span> +<p>She had hidden herself in the heart of the elder blossoms and was +listening and blinking under the pointed darts of the sunlight, when she +heard someone beside her sigh. Turning round she saw—well, now it +really <i>was</i> the strangest of all the strange creatures she had +ever met. It must have had at least a hundred legs along each side of +its body—so she thought at first glance. It was about three times +her size, and slim, low, and wingless.</p> + +<p>“For goodness sake! Mercy on me!” Maya was quite startled. “You must +certainly be able to run!”</p> + +<p>The stranger gave her a pondering look.</p> + +<p>“I doubt it,” he said. “I doubt it. There’s room for improvement. +I have too many legs. You see, before all my legs can be set in +motion, too much time is lost. I didn’t use to realize this, and +often wished I had a few more legs. But God’s will be done.—Who +are you?”</p> + +<p>Maya introduced herself. The other one nodded and moved some of his +legs.</p> + +<p>“I am Thomas of the family of <ins class = "correction" title = +"spelling unchanged">millepeds</ins>. We are an old race, and we arouse +admiration and astonishment in all parts of the globe. No +<span class = "pagenum">174</span> +other animals can boast anything like our number of legs. Eight is +<i>their</i> limit, so far as I know.”</p> + +<p>“You are tremendously interesting. And your color is so queer. Have +you got a family?”</p> + +<p>“Why, no! Why should I? What good would a family do me? We millepeds +crawl out of our eggs; that’s all. If <i>we</i> can’t stand on our own +feet, who should?”</p> + +<p>“Of course, of course,” Maya observed thoughtfully. “But have you no +relations?”</p> + +<p>“No, dear child. I earn my living, and doubt. I doubt.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! <i>What</i> do you doubt?”</p> + +<p>“I was born doubting. I must doubt.”</p> + +<p>Maya stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. What did he mean, what +could he possibly mean? She couldn’t for the life of her make out, but +she did not want to pry too curiously into his private affairs.</p> + +<p>“For one thing,” said Thomas after a pause, “for one thing I doubt +whether you have chosen a good place to rest in. Don’t you know what’s +over there in the big willow?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">175</span> +<p>“You see! I doubted right away if you knew. The city of the hornets +is over there.”</p> + +<p>Maya turned deathly white and nearly fell off the elder blossoms. In +a voice shaking with fright, she asked just where the city was.</p> + +<p>“Do you see that old nesting-box for starlings, there in the +shrubbery near the trunk of the willow-tree? It’s so poorly placed that +I doubted from the first whether starlings would ever move in. If a +bird-house isn’t set with its door facing the sunrise, every decent bird +will think twice before taking possession. Well, the hornets have +entrenched themselves in it. It’s the biggest hornets’ fortress in the +country. You as a bee certainly ought to know of the place. Why, the +hornets are brigands who lie in wait for you bees. So, at least, +I have observed.”</p> + +<p>Maya scarcely heard what he was saying. There, showing clear against +the green, she saw the brown walls of the fortress. She almost stopped +breathing.</p> + +<p>“I must fly away,” she cried.</p> + +<p>Too late! Behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. At the same moment +the little +<span class = "pagenum">176</span> +bee felt herself caught by the neck, so violently that she thought her +joints were broken. It was a laugh she would never forget, like a vile +taunt out of hellish darkness. Mingling with it was another gruesome +sound, the awful clanking of armor.</p> + +<p>Thomas let go with all his legs at once and tumbled head over heels +through the branches into the water-butt.</p> + +<p>“I doubt if you get away alive,” he called back. But the poor little +bee no longer heard.</p> + +<p>She couldn’t see her assailant, her neck was caught in too firm a +grip, but a gilt-sheathed arm passed before her eyes, and a huge head +with dreadful pincers suddenly thrust itself above her face. She took it +at first to belong to a gigantic wasp, but then realized that she had +fallen into the clutches of a hornet. The black-and-yellow striped +monster was surely four times her size.</p> + +<p>Maya lost sight, hearing, speech; every nerve in her body went faint. +At length her voice came back, and she screamed for help.</p> + +<p>“Never mind, girlie,” said the hornet in a honey-sweet tone that was +sickening. “Never +<span class = "pagenum">177</span> +mind. It’ll last until it’s over.” He smiled a baleful smile.</p> + +<p>“Let go!” cried Maya. “Let me go! Or I’ll sting you in your +heart.”</p> + +<p>“In my heart right away? Very brave. But there’s time for that +later.”</p> + +<p>Maya went into a fury. Summoning all her strength, she twisted +herself around, uttered her shrill battle-cry, and directed her sting +against the middle of the hornet’s breast. To her amazement and horror, +the sting, instead of piercing his breast, swerved on the surface. The +brigand’s armor was impervious.</p> + +<p>Wrath gleamed in his eyes.</p> + +<p>“I could bite your head off, little one, to punish you for your +impudence. And I would, too, I would indeed, but for our queen. She +prefers fresh bees to dead carcasses. So a good soldier saves a juicy +morsel like you to bring to her alive.”</p> + +<p>The hornet, with Maya still in his grip, rose into the air and made +directly for the fortress.</p> + +<p>“This is too awful,” thought the poor little bee. “No one can stand +this.” She fainted.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic181.png" width = "262" height = "205" +alt = "Maya in the hornet prison"> +</p> + +<p>When she came to her senses, she found herself +<span class = "pagenum">178</span> +in half darkness, in a sultry dusk permeated by a horrid, pungent smell. +Slowly everything came back to her. A great paralyzing sadness +settled in her heart. She wanted to cry: the tears refused to come.</p> + +<p>“I haven’t been eaten up yet, but I may be, any moment,” she thought +in a tremble.</p> + +<p>Through the walls of her prison she caught the distinct sound of +voices, and soon she noticed that a little light filtered through a +narrow chink. The hornets make their walls, not of wax like the bees, +but of a dry mass resembling porous grey paper. By the one thread of +light she managed bit by bit to make out her surroundings. Horror of +horrors! Maya was almost congealed with fright: the floor was strewn +with the bodies of dead insects. At her very feet lay a little +rose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of a +large locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains of +slaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths.</p> + +<p>“Oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me,” whimpered little Maya. +She did not dare to stir the fraction of an inch and pressed herself +<span class = "pagenum">179</span> +shivering into the farthest corner of this chamber of horrors.</p> + +<p>Again she heard voices on the other side of the wall. Impelled by +mortal fear, she crept up to the chink and peeped through. What she saw +was a vast hall crowded with hornets and magnificently illuminated by a +number of captive glow-worms. Enthroned in their midst sat the queen, +who seemed to be holding an important council. Maya caught every word +that was said.</p> + +<p>If those glittering monsters had not inspired her with such +unspeakable horror, she would have gone into raptures over their +strength and magnificence. It was the first time she had had a good view +of any of the race of brigands. Tigers they looked like, superb tigers +of the insect world, with their tawny black-barred bodies. A shiver +of awe ran through the little bee.</p> + +<p>A sergeant-at-arms went about the walls of the hall ordering the +glow-worms to give all the light they could; they must strain themselves +to the utmost. He muttered his commands in a low voice, so as not to +interrupt +<span class = "pagenum">180</span> +the deliberations, and thrust at them with a long spear, hissing as he +did so:</p> + +<p>“Light up, or I’ll eat you!”</p> + +<p>Terrible the things that were done in the fortress of the +hornets!</p> + +<p>Then Maya heard the queen say:</p> + +<p>“Very well, we shall abide by the arrangements we have made. +To-morrow, one hour before dawn, the warriors will assemble and sally +forth to the attack on the city of the bees in the castle park. The hive +is to be plundered and as many prisoners taken as possible. He who +captures Queen Helen VIII and brings her to me alive will be dubbed a +knight. Go forth and be brave and victorious and bring back rich +booty.—The meeting is herewith adjourned. Sleep well, my warriors. +I bid you good-night.”</p> + +<p>The queen-hornet rose from her throne and left the hall accompanied +by her body-guard.</p> + +<p>Maya nearly cried out loud.</p> + +<p>“My country!” she sobbed, “my bees, my dear, dear bees!” She pressed +her hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. She was in the +depths of despair. “Oh, would +<span class = "pagenum">181</span> +that I had died before I heard this. No one will warn my people. They +will be attacked in their sleep and massacred. O God, perform a +miracle, help me, help me and my people. Our need is great!”</p> + +<p>In the hall the glow-worms were put out and devoured. Gradually the +fortress was wrapped in a hush. Maya seemed to have been forgotten. +A faint twilight crept into her cell, and she thought she caught +the strumming of the crickets’ night song outside.—Was anything +more horrible than this dungeon with its carcasses strewn on the +ground!</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">182</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic182.png" width = "327" height = "162" +alt = "Maya with the hornet sentinel"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXIV" id = "chapXIV"> +CHAPTER XIV</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE SENTINEL</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Soon,</span> +however, the little bee’s despair yielded to a definite resolve. It was +as though she once more called to mind that she was a bee.</p> + +<p>“Here I am weeping and wailing,” she thought, “as if I had no brains +and as if I were a weakling. Oh, I’m not much of an honor to my people +and my queen. They are in danger. I am doomed anyhow. So since +death is certain one way or another, I may as well be proud and +brave and do everything I can to try to save them.”</p> + +<p>It was as though Maya had completely forgotten the long time that had +passed since she +<span class = "pagenum">183</span> +left her home. More strongly than ever she felt herself one of her +people; and the great responsibility that suddenly devolved upon her, +through the knowledge of the hornets’ plot, filled her with fine courage +and determination.</p> + +<p>“If my people are to be vanquished and killed, I want to be killed, +too. But first I must do everything in my power to save them.”</p> + +<p>“Long live my queen!” she cried.</p> + +<p>“Quiet in there!” clanged harshly from the outside.</p> + +<p>Ugh, what an awful voice!—The watchman making his +rounds.—Then it was already late in the night.</p> + +<p>As soon as the watchman’s footsteps had died away, Maya began to +widen the chink through which she had peeped into the hall. It was easy +to bite away the brittle stuff of the partition, though it took some +time before the opening was large enough to admit her body. At length, +in the full knowledge that discovery would cost her her life, she +squeezed through into the hall. From remote depths +<span class = "pagenum">184</span> +of the fortress echoed the sound of loud snoring.</p> + +<p>The hall lay in a subdued blue light that found its way in through +the distant entrance.</p> + +<p>“The moonlight!” Maya said to herself. She began to creep cautiously +toward the exit, cowering close in the deep shadows of the walls, until +she reached the high, narrow passageway that led from the hall to the +opening through which the light shone. She heaved a deep sigh. Far, far +away glimmered a star.</p> + +<p>“Liberty!” she thought.</p> + +<p>The passageway was quite bright. Softly, stepping oh so very softly, +Maya crept on. The portal came nearer and nearer.</p> + +<p>“If I fly now,” she thought, “I’ll be out in one dash.” Her heart +pounded as if ready to burst.</p> + +<p>But there in the shadow of the doorway stood a sentinel leaning +against a column.</p> + +<p>Maya stood still, rooted to the spot. Vanished all her hopes. Gone +the chance of escape. There was no getting by that formidable +<span class = "pagenum">185</span> +figure. What was she to do? Best go back where she had come from. But +the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. He seemed to +be lost in revery. He stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, +his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. How his +golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! Something in the way he stood +there stirred the little bee’s emotions.</p> + +<p>“He looks so sad,” she thought. “How handsome he is, how superbly he +holds himself, how proudly his armor shines! He never removes it, +neither by day nor by night. He is always ready to rob and fight and +die....”</p> + +<p>Little Maya quite forgot that this man was her enemy. Ah, how often +the same thing had happened to her—that the goodness of her heart +and her delight in beauty made her lose all sense of danger.</p> + +<p>A golden dart of light shot from the bandit’s helmet. He must have +turned his head.</p> + +<p>“My God,” whispered Maya, “this is the end of me!”</p> + +<p>But the sentinel said quietly:</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">186</span> +<p>“Just come here, child.”</p> + +<p>“What!” cried Maya. “You saw me?”</p> + +<p>“All the time, child. You bit a hole through the wall, then you crept +along—crept along—tucking yourself very neatly into the dark +places—until you reached the spot where you’re standing. Then you +saw me, and you lost heart. Am I right?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Maya, “quite right.” Her whole body shook with terror. +The sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. She remembered having +heard how keen were the senses of these clever freebooters.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing here?” he asked good-humoredly.</p> + +<p>Maya still thought he looked sad. His mind seemed to be far away and +not to concern itself with what was of such moment to her.</p> + +<p>“I’d like to get out,” she answered. “And I’m not afraid. I was +just startled. You looked so strong and handsome, and your armor shone +so. Now I’ll fight you.”</p> + +<p>The sentinel, slightly astonished, leaned forward, and looked at Maya +and smiled. It +<span class = "pagenum">187</span> +was not an ugly smile, and Maya experienced an entirely new feeling: the +young warrior’s smile seemed to exercise a mysterious power over her +heart.</p> + +<p>“No, little one,” he said almost tenderly, “you and I won’t fight. +You bees belong to a powerful nation, but man for man we hornets are +stronger. To do single battle with a bee would be beneath our dignity. +If you like you may stay here a little while and chat. But only a little +while. Soon I’ll have to wake the soldiers up; then, back to your cell +you must go.”</p> + +<p>How curious! The hornet’s lofty friendliness disarmed Maya more than +anger or hate could have done. The feeling with which he inspired her +was almost admiration. With great sad eyes she looked up at her enemy, +and constrained, as always, to follow the impulses of her heart, she +said:</p> + +<p>“I have always heard bad things about hornets. But you are not bad. +I can’t believe you’re bad.”</p> + +<p>The warrior looked at Maya.</p> + +<p>“There are good people and bad people +<span class = "pagenum">188</span> +everywhere,” he said, gravely. “But you mustn’t forget we are your +enemies, and shall always remain your enemies.”</p> + +<p>“Must an enemy always be bad?” asked Maya. “Before, when you were +looking out into the moonlight, I forgot that you were hard and +dangerous. You seemed sad, and I have always thought that people who +were sad couldn’t possibly be wicked.”</p> + +<p>The sentinel said nothing, and Maya continued more boldly:</p> + +<p>“You are powerful. If you want to, you can put me back in my cell, +and I’ll have to die. But you can also set me free—if you +want to.”</p> + +<p>At this the warrior drew himself up. His armor clanked, and the arm +he raised shone in the moonlight.</p> + +<p>But the moonlight was turning dimmer in the passageway. Was dawn +coming already?</p> + +<p>“You are right,” he said. “I can. My people and my queen have +entrusted me with this power. My orders are that no bee who has +<span class = "pagenum">189</span> +set foot in this fortress shall leave it alive. I shall keep faith +with my people.”</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic193.png" width = "287" height = "260" +alt = "Maya talks to the hornet sentinel"> +</p> + +<p>After a pause he added softly as if to himself: “I have learned by +bitter experience how faithlessness can hurt—when Loveydear +forsook me....”</p> + +<p>Little Maya was overcome. She did not know what to say. Ah, the same +sentiments moved her, too—love of her own kind, loyalty to her +people. Nothing to be done here but to use force or strategy. Each did +his duty, and yet each remained an enemy to the other.</p> + +<p>But hadn’t the sentinel mentioned a name? Hadn’t he said something +about someone’s having been unfaithful to him? Loveydear—why, she +knew Loveydear—the beautiful dragon-fly who lived at the lakeside +among the waterlilies.</p> + +<p>Maya quivered with excitement. Here, perhaps, was her salvation. But +she wasn’t quite sure how much good her knowledge would be to her. So +she said prudently:</p> + +<p>“Who is Loveydear, if I may ask?”</p> + +<p>“Never mind, little one. She’s not your affair, +<span class = "pagenum">190</span> +and she’s lost to me forever. I shall never find her again.”</p> + +<p>“I know Miss Loveydear.” Maya forced herself to put the utmost +indifference into her tone. “She belongs to the family of dragon-flies +and she’s the loveliest lady of all.”</p> + +<p>A tremendous change came over the warrior. He seemed to have +forgotten where he was. He leapt over to Maya’s sides as if blown by a +violent gust.</p> + +<p>“What! You know Loveydear? Tell me where she is. Tell me, right +away.”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Maya spoke quietly and firmly; she glowed with secret delight.</p> + +<p>“I’ll bite your head off if you don’t tell.” The warrior drew +dangerously close.</p> + +<p>“It will be bitten off anyhow. Go ahead. I shan’t betray the lovely +dragon-fly. She’s a close friend of mine.... You want to imprison +her.”</p> + +<p>The warrior breathed hard. In the gathering dawn Maya could see that +his forehead +<span class = "pagenum">191</span> +was pale and his eyes tragic with the inner struggle he was waging.</p> + +<p>“Good God!” he said wildly. “It’s time to rouse the +soldiers.—No, no, little bee, I don’t want to harm Loveydear. +I love her, more dearly than my life. Tell me where I shall find +her again.”</p> + +<p>Maya was clever. She purposely hesitated before she said:</p> + +<p>“But I love my life.”</p> + +<p>“If you tell me where Loveydear lives”—Maya could see that the +sentinel spoke with difficulty and was trembling all over<ins class = +"correction" title = "open quote missing">—“</ins>I’ll set you +free. You can fly wherever you want.”</p> + +<p>“Will you keep your word?”</p> + +<p>“My word of honor as a brigand,” said the sentinel proudly.</p> + +<p>Maya could scarcely speak. But, if she was to be in time to warn her +people of the attack, every moment counted. Her heart exulted.</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she said, “I believe you. Listen, then. Do you know the +ancient linden-trees near the castle? Beyond them lies one meadow after +another, and finally comes a big +<span class = "pagenum">192</span> +lake. In a cove at the south end where the brook empties into the lake +the waterlilies lie spread out on the water in the sunlight. Near them, +in the rushes, is where Loveydear lives. You’ll find her there every day +at noon when the sun is high in the heavens.”</p> + +<p>The warrior had pressed both hands to his pale brow. He seemed to be +having a desperate struggle with himself.</p> + +<p>“You’re telling the truth,” he said softly and groaned, whether from +joy or pain it was impossible to tell. “She told me she wanted to go +where there were floating white flowers. Those must be the flowers you +speak of. Fly away, then. I thank you.”</p> + +<p>And actually he stepped aside from the entrance.</p> + +<p>Day was breaking.</p> + +<p>“A brigand keeps his word,” he said.</p> + +<p>Not knowing that Maya had overheard the deliberations in the council +chamber, he told himself that one small bee more or less made little +difference. Weren’t there hundreds of others?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">193</span> +<p>“Good-by,” cried Maya, breathless with haste, and flew off without a +word of thanks.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, there was no time to spare.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">194</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic194.png" width = "324" height = "158" +alt = "Maya returns to her hive"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXV" id = "chapXV"> +CHAPTER XV</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE WARNING</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">Little</span> +Maya summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. Like a +bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than most +insects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beeline +for the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and could +hide herself away should the hornet regret having let her go and follow +in pursuit.</p> + +<p>Gossamer veils hung everywhere over the level country, big drops fell +from the trees on the dry leaves carpeting the ground, and the cold in +the woods threatened to paralyze little Maya’s wings. No ray of the dawn +had as +<span class = "pagenum">195</span> +yet found its way between the trees. The air was as hushed as if the sun +had forgotten the earth, and all creatures had laid themselves to +eternal rest.</p> + +<p>Maya, therefore, flew high up in the air. Only one thing +mattered—to get back as quickly as strength and wits permitted to +her hive, her people, her endangered home. She must warn her people. +They must prepare against the attack which the terrible brigands had +planned for that very morning. Oh, if only the nation of bees had the +chance to arm and make ready its defenses, it was well able to cope with +its stronger opponents. But a surprise assault at rising time! What if +the queen and the soldiers were still asleep? The success of the hornets +would then be assured. They would take prisoners and give no quarter. +The butchery would be horrible.</p> + +<p>Thinking of the strength and energy of her people, their readiness to +meet death, their devotion to their queen, the little bee felt a great +wrath against their enemies the hornets. Her beloved people! No +sacrifice was too great for them. Little Maya’s heart swelled with +<span class = "pagenum">196</span> +the ecstasy of self-sacrifice and the dauntless courage of +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>It was not easy for her to find her way over the woods. Long before +she had ceased to observe landmarks as did the other bees, who had great +distances to come back with their loads of nectar. She felt she had +never flown as high before, the cold hurt, and she could scarcely +distinguish the objects below.</p> + +<p>“What can I go by?” she thought. “No one thing stands out. +I shan’t be able to reach my people and help them. Oh, oh! And here +I had a chance to atone for my desertion. What shall I do? What shall I +do?”—Suddenly some secret force steered her in a certain +direction. “<i>What</i> is pushing and pulling me? It must be +homesickness guiding me back to my country.” She gave herself up to the +instinct and flew swiftly on. Soon, in the distance, looking like grey +domes in the dim light of the dawn, showed the mighty lindens of the +castle park. She exclaimed with delight. She knew where she was. She +dropped closer to the earth. In the meadows on one side hung the +luminous wisps of fog, thicker here than in the +<span class = "pagenum">197</span> +woods. She thought of the flower-sprites who cheerfully died their early +death inside the floating veils. That inspired her anew with confidence. +Her anxiety disappeared. Let her people spurn her from the kingdom, let +the queen punish her for desertion, if only the bees were spared this +dreadful calamity of the hornets’ invasion.</p> + +<p>Close to the long stone wall shone the silver-fir that shielded the +bee-city against the west wind. And there—she could see them +distinctly now—were the red, blue, and green portals of her +homeland. The stormy pounding of her heart nearly robbed her of her +breath. But on she flew toward the red entrance which led to her people +and her queen.</p> + +<p>On the flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laid +hands upon her. Maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and the +sentinels threatened to kill her. For a bee to force its way into a +strange city without the queen’s consent is a capital offense.</p> + +<p>“Stand back!” cried one sentinel, thrusting her roughly away. “What’s +the matter with you! If you don’t leave this instant, you’ll +die.—Did +<span class = "pagenum">198</span> +you ever!” He turned to the other sentinel. “Have you ever seen the +like, and before daytime too?”</p> + +<p>Now Maya pronounced the password by which all the bees knew one +another. The sentinels instantly released her.</p> + +<p>“What!” they cried. “You are one of us, and we don’t know you?”</p> + +<p>“Let me get to the queen,” groaned the little bee. “Right away, +quick! We are in terrible danger.”</p> + +<p>The sentinels still hesitated. They couldn’t grasp the situation.</p> + +<p>“The queen may not be awakened before sunrise,” said the one.</p> + +<p>“Then,” Maya screamed, her voice rising to a passionate yell such as +the sentinels had probably never heard from a bee before, “then the +queen will never wake up alive. Death is following at my heels. Take me +to the queen! Take me to the queen, I say!” Her voice was so wild +and wrathful that the sentinels were frightened, and obeyed.</p> + +<p>The three hurried together through the warm, well-known streets and +corridors. +<span class = "pagenum">199</span> +Maya recognized everything, and for all her excitement and the +tremendous need for haste, her heart quivered with sweet melancholy at +the sight of the dear familiar scenes.</p> + +<p>“I am at home,” she stammered with pale lips.</p> + +<p>In the queen’s reception room she almost broke down. One of the +sentinels supported her while the other hurried with the unusual message +into the private chambers. Both of them now realized that something +momentous was taking place, and the messenger ran as fast as his legs +would carry him.</p> + +<p>The first wax-generators were already up. Here and there a little +head thrust itself out curiously from the openings. The news of the +incident traveled quickly.</p> + +<p>Two officers emerged from the private chambers. Maya recognized them +instantly. In solemn silence, without a word to her, they took their +posts, one on each side of the doorway: the queen would soon appear.</p> + +<p>She came without her court, attended only by her aide and two +ladies-in-waiting. She hurried straight over to Maya. When she +<span class = "pagenum">200</span> +saw what a state the child was in, the severe expression on her face +relaxed a little.</p> + +<a name = "plate3" id = "plate3"> </a> +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/plate3.jpg" width = "422" height = "608" +alt = "see caption"> +</p> + +<p class = "caption"> +The Queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and two +ladies-in-waiting</p> + +<p>“You have come with an important message? Who are you?”</p> + +<p>Maya could not speak at once. Finally she managed to frame two +words:</p> + +<p>“The hornets!”</p> + +<p>The queen turned pale. But her composure was unshaken, and Maya was +somewhat calmed.</p> + +<p>“Almighty queen!” she cried. “Forgive me for not respecting the +duties I owe Your Majesty. Later I will tell you everything I have done. +I repent. With my whole heart I repent.—Just a little while +ago, as by a miracle, I escaped from the fortress of the hornets, +and the last I heard was that they were planning to attack and plunder +our kingdom at dawn.”</p> + +<p>The wild dismay that the little bee’s words produced was +indescribable. The ladies-in-waiting set up a loud wail, the officers at +the door turned pale and made as if to dash off and sound the alarm, the +aide said: “Good God!” and wheeled completely round, because he wanted +to see on all sides at once.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">201</span> +<p>As for the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with what +composure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. She drew +herself up, and there was something in her attitude that both +intimidated and inspired endless confidence. Little Maya was awed. +Never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. It was like a +great, magnificent event in itself.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic203.png" width = "268" height = "242" +alt = "the queen bee with attendants"> +</p> + +<p>The queen beckoned the officers to her side and uttered a few rapid +sentences aloud. At the end Maya heard:</p> + +<p>“I give you one minute for the execution of my orders. A fraction of +a second longer, and it will cost you your heads.”</p> + +<p>But the officers scarcely looked as if they needed this incentive. In +less time than it takes to tell they were gone. Their instant readiness +was a joy to behold.</p> + +<p>“O my queen!” said Maya.</p> + +<p>The queen inclined her head to the little bee, who once again for a +brief moment saw her monarch’s countenance beam upon her gently, +lovingly.</p> + +<p>“You have our thanks,” she said. “You have +<span class = "pagenum">202</span> +saved us. No matter what your previous conduct may have been, you have +made up for it a thousandfold.—But go, rest now, little girl, you +look very miserable, and your hands are trembling.”</p> + +<p>“I should like to die for you,” Maya stammered, quivering.</p> + +<p>“Don’t worry about us,” replied the queen. “Among the thousands +inhabiting this city there is not one who would hesitate a moment to +sacrifice his life for me and for the welfare of the country. You can go +to sleep peacefully.”</p> + +<p>She bent over and kissed the little bee on her forehead. Then she +beckoned to the ladies-in-waiting and bade them see to Maya’s rest and +comfort.</p> + +<p>Maya, stirred to the depths of her being, allowed herself to be led +away. After this, life had nothing lovelier to offer. As in a dream she +heard the loud, clear signals in the distance, saw the high dignitaries +of state assemble around the royal chambers, heard a dull, far-echoing +drone that shook the hive from roof to foundation.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">203</span> +<p>“The soldiers! Our soldiers!” whispered the ladies-in-waiting at her +side.</p> + +<p>The last thing Maya heard in the little room where her companions put +her to bed was the tramp of soldiers marching past her door and commands +shouted in a blithe, resolute, ringing voice. Into her dreams, echoing +as from a great distance, she carried the ancient song of the +soldier-bees:</p> + +<div class = "poem"> +<p>Sunlight, sunlight, golden sheen,</p> +<p class = "indent">By your glow our lives are lighted;</p> +<p>Bless our labors, bless our Queen,</p> +<p class = "indent">Let us always be united.</p> +</div> + + +<span class = "pagenum">204</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic204.png" width = "325" height = "159" +alt = "the bees in military formation"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXVI" id = "chapXVI"> +CHAPTER XVI</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE BATTLE</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">The</span> +kingdom of the bees was in a whirl of excitement. Not even in the days +of the revolution had the turmoil been so great. The hive rumbled and +roared. Every bee was fired by a holy wrath, a burning ardor to +meet and fight the ancient enemy to the very last gasp. Yet there was no +disorder or confusion. Marvelous the speed with which the regiments were +mobilized, marvelous the way each soldier knew his duty and fell into +his right place and took up his right work.</p> + +<p>It was high time. At the queen’s call for volunteers to defend the +entrance, a number +<span class = "pagenum">205</span> +of bees offered themselves, and of these several had been sent out to +see if the enemy was approaching. Two had now returned—whizzing +dots—and reported that the hornets were drawing near.</p> + +<p>An awesome hush of expectancy fell upon the hive. Soldiers in three +closed ranks stood lined up at the entrance, proud, pale, solemn, +composed. No one spoke. The silence of death prevailed, except for the +low commands of the officers drawing up the reserves in the rear. The +hive seemed to be fast asleep. The only stir came from the doorway where +about a dozen wax-generators were at work in feverish silence <ins class += "correction" title = "text reads ‘excuting’">executing</ins> their +orders to narrow the entrance with wax. As by a miracle, two thick +partitions of wax had already gone up, which even the strongest hornets +could not batter down without great loss of time. The hole had been +reduced by almost half.</p> + +<p>The queen took up an elevated position inside the hive from which she +was able to survey the battle. Her aides flew scurrying hither and +thither.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">206</span> +<p>The third messenger returned. He sank down exhausted at the queen’s +feet.</p> + +<p>“I am the last who will return,” he shouted with all the strength he +had left. “The others have been killed.”</p> + +<p>“Where are the hornets?” asked the queen.</p> + +<p>“At the lindens!—Listen, listen,” he stammered in mortal +terror, “the air hums with the wings of the giants.”</p> + +<p>No sound was heard. It must have been the poor fellow’s terrified +imagination, he must have thought he was still being pursued.</p> + +<p>“How many are there?” asked the queen sternly. “Answer in a low +voice.”</p> + +<p>“I counted forty.”</p> + +<p>Although the queen was startled by the enemy’s numbers, she gave no +sign of shock.</p> + +<p>In a ringing, confident voice that all could hear, she said:</p> + +<p>“Not one of them will see his home again.”</p> + +<p>Her words, which seemed to sound the enemy’s doom, had instant +effect. Men and officers alike felt their courage rise.</p> + +<p>But when in the quiet of the morning an ominous whirring was heard +outside the hive, +<span class = "pagenum">207</span> +first softly, then louder and louder, and the entrance darkened, and the +whispering voices of the hornets, the most frightful robbers and +murderers in the insect world, penetrated into the hive, then the faces +of the valiant little bees turned pale as if washed over by a drab light +falling upon their ranks. They gazed at one another with eyes in which +death sat waiting, and those who were ranged at the entrance knew full +well that one moment more and all would be over with them.</p> + +<p>The queen’s controlled voice came clear and tranquil from her place +on high:</p> + +<p>“Let the robbers enter one by one until I give orders to attack. Then +those at the front throw themselves upon the invaders a hundred at a +time, and the ranks behind cover the entrance. In that way we shall +divide up the enemy’s forces. Remember, you at the front, upon your +strength and endurance and bravery depends the fate of the whole state. +Have no fear; in the dusk the enemy will not see right away how well +prepared we are, and he will enter unsuspecting....”</p> + +<p>She broke off. There, thrust through the +<span class = "pagenum">208</span> +doorway, was the head of the first brigand. The feelers played about, +groping, cautious, the pincers opened and closed. It was a +blood-curdling sight. Slowly the huge black-and-gold striped body with +its strong wings crept in after the head. The light falling in from the +outside drew gleams from the warrior’s cuirass.</p> + +<p>Something like a quiver went through the ranks of the bees, but the +silence remained unbroken.</p> + +<p>The hornet withdrew quietly. Outside he could be heard +announcing:</p> + +<p>“They’re fast asleep. But the entrance is half walled up and there +are no sentinels. I do not know whether to take this as a good or a +bad sign.”</p> + +<p>“A good sign!” rang out. “Forward!”</p> + +<p>At that two giants leapt in through the entrance side by side; after +them, soundlessly, pressed a throng of striped, armed, gleaming +warriors, awful to behold. Eight made their way into the hive. Still no +orders to attack from the queen. Was she dumb with horror, had her voice +failed her?</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">209</span> +<p>And the brigands, did they not see in the shadow, to right and left, +the soldiers drawn up in close, glittering ranks ready for mortal +combat...?</p> + +<p>Now at last came the order from on high:</p> + +<p>“In the name of eternal right, in the name of your queen, to the +defense of the realm!”</p> + +<p>At that a droning roar went up. Never before had the city been shaken +by such a battle-cry. It threatened to burst the hive in two. Where, an +instant before, the hornets had been visible singly, there were now +buzzing heaps, thick, dark, rolling knots. A young officer had +scarcely awaited the end of the queen’s words. He wanted to be the first +to attack. He was the first to die. He had stood for some time ready to +leap all a-quiver with eagerness for battle, and at the first sound of +the order he rushed forward right into the clutches of the foremost +brigand. His delicately fine-pointed sting found its way between the +head and upper breast-ring of his opponent; he heard the hornet give a +yell of rage, saw him double up into a glittering, gold-black ball. Then +the bandit’s fearful sting leapt out and pierced +<span class = "pagenum">210</span> +between the young officer’s breast-rings right into his heart; and dying +the bee felt himself and his mortally wounded enemy sink under a cloud +of storming bees. His brave death inspired them all with the wild +rapture that comes from utter willingness to die for a noble cause. +Fearful was their attack upon the invaders. The hornets were sore +pressed.</p> + +<p>But the hornets are an old race of robbers, trained to warfare. +Pillage and murder have long been their gruesome profession. Though the +initial assault of the bees had confused and divided them, yet the +damage was not so great as might have seemed at first. For the bees’ +stings did not penetrate their breastplates, and their strength and +gigantic size gave them an advantage of which they were well aware. +Their sharp, buzzing battle-cry rose high above the battle-cry of the +bees. It is a sound that fills all creatures with horror, even human +beings, who dread this danger signal, and are careful not to enter into +conflict with hornets unprotected.</p> + +<p>Those of the assailants who had already penetrated into the hive +quickly realized that +<span class = "pagenum">211</span> +they must make their way still deeper inward if they were not to block +up the entrance to their comrades outside. And so the struggling knots +rolled farther and farther down the dark streets and corridors. How +right the queen had been in her tactics! No sooner was a bit of space at +the entrance cleared than the ranks in the rear leapt forward to its +defense. It was an old strategy, and a dreadful one for the enemy. When +a hornet at the entrance gave signs of exhaustion, the bees shammed the +same, and let him crawl in; but the instant the one behind showed his +head a great swarm of fresh soldiers dashed up to defend the apparently +unprotected entrance, while the invader who had gone on ahead would find +himself, already wearied, suddenly confronted by glittering ranks of +soldier-bees who had not yet stirred a finger in battle. Generally he +succumbed to their superior numbers at the very first attack.</p> + +<p>Now the groans of the wounded and the shrieks of the dying mingled in +wild agony with the fierce battle-cries. The hornets’ stings worked +fearful havoc among the bees. +<span class = "pagenum">212</span> +The rolling knots left tracks of dead bodies in their wake. The hornets, +whose retreat had been cut off, realizing that they would never see the +light of day again, fought the fight of despair. Yet, slowly, one by +one, they succumbed. There was one great thing against them. Though +their strength was inexhaustible, not so the poison of their sting. +After a time their sting lost its virulence, and the wounded bees, +knowing they’d recover, fought in the consciousness of certain victory. +To this was added the grief of the bees for their dead; it gave them the +power of divine wrath.</p> + +<p>Gradually the din subsided. The loud calls of the hornets on the +outside met with no response from the invaders within.</p> + +<p>“They are all dead,” said the leader of the hornets grimly, and +summoned the combatants back from the entrance. Their numbers had melted +down to half.</p> + +<p>“We have been betrayed,” said the leader. “The bees were +prepared.”</p> + +<p>The hornets were assembled on the silver-fir. It had grown lighter, +and the red of dawn +<span class = "pagenum">213</span> +tinged the tops of the linden-trees. The birds began to sing. The dew +fell. Pale and quivering with rage of battle, the warriors stood around +their leader, who was waging an awful inward struggle. Should he yield +to prudence or to his lust for pillage? The former prevailed. There was +no use anyway. His whole tribe was in danger of destruction. Grudgingly, +in a shudder of thwarted ambition, he determined to send a messenger to +the bees to sue for the return of the prisoners.</p> + +<p>He chose his cleverest officer and called upon him by name.</p> + +<p>A depressed silence instead of an answer. The officer was among those +who had been cut off.</p> + +<p>The leader, overcome now by mortal dread lest those who had entered +would never return, quickly chose another officer. The raging and +roaring in the beehive could be heard in the distance.</p> + +<p>“Be quick!” he cried, laying the white petal of a jasmine in the +messenger’s hand, “or the human beings will soon come and we shall be +lost. Tell the bees we will go away and leave +<span class = "pagenum">214</span> +them in peace forever if they will deliver up the prisoners.”</p> + +<p>The messenger rushed off. At the entrance he waved his white signal +and alighted on the flying-board.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic217.png" width = "243" height = "194" +alt = "the hive entrance"> +</p> + +<p>The queen-bee was immediately informed that an emissary was outside +who wanted to make terms, and she sent her aide to parley with him. When +he returned with his report she sent back this reply:</p> + +<p>“We will deliver up the dead if you want to take them away. There are +no prisoners. All of your people who invaded our territory are dead. +Your promise never to return we do not believe. You may come again, +whenever you wish. You will fare no better than you did to-day. And if +you want to go on with the battle we are ready to fight to the last +bee.”</p> + +<p>The leader of the hornets turned pale when this message was delivered +to him. He clenched his fists, he fought with himself. Only too gladly +would he have yielded to the wishes of his warriors who clamored for +revenge. Reason prevailed.</p> + +<p>“We <i>will</i> come again,” he hissed. “How +<span class = "pagenum">215</span> +could this thing have happened to us? Are we not a more powerful people +than the bees? Every campaign of mine so far has been successful and has +only added to our glory. How can I face the queen after this defeat?” In +a quiver of fury he cried again: “How could this thing have happened to +us? There must be treachery somewhere.”</p> + +<p>An older hornet known as a friend of the queen’s here took up the +word.</p> + +<p>“It is true, we <i>are</i> a more powerful race, but the bees are a +unified nation, and unflinchingly loyal to their people and their state. +That is a great source of strength; it makes them irresistible. Not one +of them would turn traitor; each without thought of self serves the weal +of all.”</p> + +<p>The leader scarcely listened.</p> + +<p>“My day is coming,” he hissed. “What care I for the wisdom of these +bourgeois! I am a brigand and will die a brigand.—But to keep +up the battle now would be madness. What good would it do us if we +destroyed the whole hive, and none of us came back alive?” Turning to +the messenger, he cried:</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">216</span> +<p>“Give us back our dead. We will withdraw.”</p> + +<p>A dead silence fell. The messenger flew off.</p> + +<p>“We must be prepared for a fresh piece of trickery, though I don’t +think the hornets are in a fighting mood at present,” said the queen bee +when she heard the hornets’ decision. She gave orders for the +rear-guard, wax-generators, and honey-carriers to remove the dead from +the city while two fresh regiments guarded the entrance.</p> + +<p>Her orders were carried out. Over mountains of the dead one brigand’s +body after another was dragged to the entrance and thrown to the ground +outside.</p> + +<p>In gloomy silence the troop of hornets waited on the silver-fir and +saw the corpses of their fallen warriors drop one by one to the +earth.</p> + +<p>The sun arose upon a scene of endless desolation. Twenty-one slain, +who had died a glorious death, made a heap in the grass under the city +of the bees. Not a drop of honey, not a single prisoner had been taken +by the enemy. +<span class = "pagenum">217</span> +The hornets picked up their dead and flew away, the battle was over, the +bees had conquered.</p> + +<p>But at what a cost! Everywhere lay fallen bodies, in the streets and +corridors, in the dim places before the brooders and honey-cupboards. +Sad was the work in the hive on that lovely morning of summer sunshine +and scented blossoms. The dead had to be disposed of, the wounded had to +be bandaged and nursed. But before the hour of noon had struck, the +regular tasks were begun; for the bees neither celebrated their victory +nor spent time mourning their dead. Each bee carried his pride and his +grief locked quietly in his breast and went about his work.</p> + + +<span class = "pagenum">218</span> + +<p class = "illustration chapter"> +<img src = "images/pic218.png" width = "327" height = "167" +alt = "Maya bows to the queen bee"> +</p> + +<h5 class = "chapter"><a name = "chapXVII" id = "chapXVII"> +CHAPTER XVII</a></h5> + +<h5 class = "chaptitle">THE QUEEN’S FRIEND</h5> + + +<p class = "first"> +<span class = "firstword">The</span> +noise of battle awoke Maya out of a brief sleep. She jumped up and +straightway wanted to dash out to help defend the city, but soon +realized that she was too weak to be of any help.</p> + +<p>A group of struggling combatants came rolling toward her. One of them +was a strong young hornet, an officer, Maya judged by his badge, who was +defending himself unaided against an overwhelming number of bees. The +struggling knot drew nearer. To Maya’s horror it left one dead bee after +another in its wake. But numbers finally told against the giant: whole +clusters of bees, ready to die +<span class = "pagenum">219</span> +rather than let go, hung to his arms and legs and feelers, and their +stings were beginning to pierce between the rings of his breast. Maya +saw him drop down exhausted. Without cry or complaint, fighting to the +very end, neither suing for mercy nor reviling his opponents, he went +down to his brigand’s death.</p> + +<p>The bees left him and hurried back to the entrance to throw +themselves anew into the conflict.</p> + +<p>Maya’s heart was beating stormily. She slipped over to the hornet. He +lay curled up in the twilight, still breathing. She counted about twenty +stings, most of them in the fore part of his body, leaving his golden +armor quite whole and sound. Seeing he was still alive, she hurried away +to bring water and honey—to cheer the dying man, she thought. But +he shook his head and waived her off with his hand.</p> + +<p>“I <i>take</i> what I want,” he said proudly. “I don’t care for +gifts.”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” said Maya, “I only thought you might be thirsty.”</p> + +<p>The young officer smiled at her, then said, not sadly, but with a +strange earnestness:</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">220</span> +<p>“I must die.”</p> + +<p>The little bee could not reply. For the first time in her life she +seemed to comprehend what it meant to have to die; and death seemed much +closer when someone else was about to die than when her own life had +been imperiled in the spider’s web.</p> + +<p>“If there were only <i>some</i>thing I could do,” she said, and burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>The dying hornet made no answer. He opened his eyes once again and +heaved a deep breath—for the last time. Half an hour later he was +thrown down into the grass outside the hive along with his dead +comrades.</p> + +<p>Little Maya never forgot what she had learned from this brief +farewell. She knew now for all time that her enemies were beings like +herself, loving life as she did and having to die a hard death without +succor. She thought of the flower sprite who had told her of his rebirth +when Nature sent forth her blossoms again in the spring; and she longed +to know whether the other creatures would, like the sprite, come back to +the light of life after they had died the death of the earth.</p> + +<span class = "pagenum">221</span> +<p>“I will believe it is so,” she said softly.</p> + +<p>A messenger now came and summoned her to the queen’s presence. She +found the full court assembled in the royal reception room. Her legs +shook, she scarcely dared to raise her eyes before her monarch and so +many dignitaries. A number of the officers of the queen’s staff +were missing, and the gathering was unusually solemn. Yet a gleam of +exaltation seemed to light every brow—as if the consciousness of +triumph and new glory won encircled everyone like an invisible halo.</p> + +<p>The queen arose, made her way unattended through the assemblage, went +up to little Maya and took her in her arms.</p> + +<p>This Maya had never expected, not this. The measure of her joy was +full to overflowing; she broke down and wept.</p> + +<p>The bees were deeply stirred. There was not one among them who did +not share Maya’s happiness, who was not deeply grateful for the little +bee’s valiant deed.</p> + +<p>Maya now had to tell her whole story. Everybody wanted to know how +she had learned of the hornets’ plans and how she had +<span class = "pagenum">222</span> +succeeded in breaking out of the awful prison from which no bee had ever +before escaped.</p> + +<p>So Maya told of all the remarkable things she had seen and heard, of +Miss Loveydear with the glittering wings, of the grasshopper, of Thekla +the spider, of Puck, and of how splendidly Bobbie had come to her +rescue. When she told of the sprite and the human beings, it was so +quiet in the hall that you could hear the generators in the back of the +hive kneading the wax.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said the queen, “who’d have thought the sprites were so +lovely?” She smiled to herself with a look of melancholy and longing, as +people will who long for beauty.</p> + +<p>And all the dignitaries smiled the same smile.</p> + +<p>“How did the song of the sprite go?” she asked. “Say it again. I’d +like to learn it by heart.”</p> + +<p>Maya repeated the song of the sprite.</p> + +<div class = "poem"> +<p>My soul is that which breathes anew</p> +<p>From all of loveliness and grace;</p> +<p>And as it flows from God’s own face,</p> +<p>It flows from his creations, too.</p> +</div> + +<span class = "pagenum">223</span> +<p>There was silence for a while. The only sound was a restrained +sobbing in the back of the hall—probably someone thinking of a +friend who had been killed.</p> + +<p>Maya went on with her story. When she came to the hornets, the bees’ +eyes darkened and widened. Each imagined himself in the situation in +which one of their number had been, and quivered, and drew a deep +breath.</p> + +<p>“Awful,” said the queen, “perfectly awful....”</p> + +<p>The dignitaries murmured something to the same effect.</p> + +<p>“And so,” Maya ended, “I reached home. And I sue for your Majesty’s +pardon—a thousand times.”</p> + +<p>Oh, no one bore the little bee any ill will for having run away from +the hive. You may imagine they did not.</p> + +<p>The queen put her arm round Maya’s neck.</p> + +<p>“You did not forget your home and your people,” she said kindly. “In +your heart you were loyal. So we will be loyal to you. Henceforth you +shall stay by my side and help me conduct the affairs of state. In that +way, +<span class = "pagenum">224</span> +I think, your experiences, all the things you have learned, will be made +to serve the greatest good of your people and your country.”</p> + +<p>Cheers of approval greeted the queen’s words.</p> + +<p>So ends the story of the adventures of Maya the bee. They say her +work contributed greatly to the good and welfare of the nation, and she +came to be highly respected and loved by her people. Sometimes on quiet +evenings she went for a brief hour’s conversation to Cassandra’s +peaceful little room, where the ancient dame lived now on pension honey. +There Maya told the young bees, who listened to her eagerly, stories of +the adventures which we have lived through with her.</p> + +<p class = "illustration"> +<img src = "images/pic224.png" width = "263" height = "189" +alt = "Maya and old Cassandra"> +</p> + +</div> <!-- end div maintext --> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF MAYA THE BEE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 22354-h.txt or 22354-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/3/5/22354">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/3/5/22354</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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