CHAPTER X.
THE SCHOOL OF THE BEES
WITH her slipper toes caught in the meshes of the hammock to keep herfrom falling out, and with her head hanging over nearly to the ground,Mary lay watching something beneath her, with breathless interest.
"What is it, Mary?" called Phil, as he came up and threw himself down onthe grass beside her, in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree.
She pointed to a saucer of sugar and water just below her, on the edgeof which several bees had alighted. "I put it there," she said, in a lowtone, as if afraid of disturbing the bees. "Mr. Ellestad has beentelling us how smart they are, and I wanted to watch them do some oftheir strange things myself. He wants Joyce to raise bees instead ofchickens or squabs or any of the things they were talking about doing.He came up after dinner with some books, and told us so much about them,that I learned more than I would in a whole week in school. Joyce andLloyd were so interested that, as soon as he left, they rode right overto Mr. Shaw's bee ranch to find out how much a hive costs, and all aboutit."
"Have they been gone long?" asked Phil, more interested in the girlsthan in the bees. Finding that they had been away more than an hour, andthat it was almost time for their return, he settled himself to wait,feigning an interest almost as great as Mary's in the saucer of sugarand water. There was something comical to him always in Mary's seriousmoods, and the grave expression of the little round face, as it hungover the edge of the hammock, promised enough amusement to make the timepass agreeably.
"When one bee gets all he can carry, he goes and tells the others,"explained Mary. "I've had six, so far. I suppose you know about Huber,"she asked, looking up eagerly. "I didn't till Mr. Ellestad read us a lotabout him out of one of the books he brought."
"I've heard of him," answered Phil, smiling, as he saw how much shewanted the pleasure of repeating her newly gained knowledge. "Supposeyou tell me."
"Well, he was born in Switzerland--in Geneva, and when Lloyd found thatout, she was ready to read anything he had written, or to study anythinghe was interested in. She just loves Geneva. That was where she met themajor who gave her Hero, her Red Cross war-dog, you know, and that iswhere he saved her life, by stopping a runaway horse.
"Well, Huber went blind when he was just a boy, and he would have had aterribly lonesome time if it hadn't been for the bees. He began to studythem, and they were so interesting that he went on studying them hiswhole life. He had somebody to help him, of course, who watched thehives, and told him what went on inside, and he found out more aboutthem than anybody had ever done before, and wrote books about them. Itis two hundred years since then, and a whole library has been writtenabout bees since then, but his books are still read, and consideredamong the best.
"Holland said, Pooh! the bees couldn't teach _him_ anything. He'd justas soon go to a school of grasshoppers, and that I'd be a goose if Ispent my time watching 'em eat sugar and water out of a dish. He wasgoing off fishing with George Lee. He wouldn't wait to hear what Mr.Ellestad had to say. But all the fish in the canal wouldn't do me asmuch good as one thing I learned from the bees."
"What was that?" asked Phil, lazily, stretching himself out full lengthon the grass, and pulling his hat over his eyes.
"Sometimes it happens that something gets into the hives that don'tbelong there; like a slug. Once a mouse got in one, and it told in thebook about a child dropping a snail in one. Well, the bees can stingsuch things to death, but they're not strong enough to drag them outafter they're dead, and if the dead bodies stayed in the hives they'dspoil everything after awhile. So the bees just cover them all over withwax, make an air-tight cell, and seal them up in it. Isn't that smart?Then they just leave it there and go off about their business, andforget about it. Mr. Ellestad said that's what people ought to do withtheir troubles that can't be cured, but have to be endured. They oughtto seal them up tight, and stop talking and fretting about them--keepthem away from the air, he said, seal them up so they won't poison theirwhole life. That set me to thinking about the trouble that is poisoningmy happiness, and I made up my mind I'd pretend it was just a snail thathad crept into my hive. I can't change it, I can't drag it out, but Iwon't let it spoil all my honey."
"Well, bless my soul!" exclaimed Phil, sitting up very straight, andlooking at her with an interest that was unfeigned this time. "Whattrouble can a child like you have, that is so bad as all that?"
"Won't you ever tell?" said Mary, "and won't you ever laugh at me?" Shewas eager to unburden her soul, but afraid of appearing ridiculous inthe eyes of her hero. "Well, it's being so fat! I've always wanted to betall and slender and willowy, like the girls in books. I always play Iam, when Patty and I go off by ourselves at recess. I have such goodtimes then, but when I come back the boys call me Pudding, and MotherBunch and _Gordo_. I think that is Spanish for _fat_. My face is just asround as a full moon, and my waist--well, Holland calls me _Chautauqua_,and that's Indian for bag-tied-in-the-middle. There isn't a girl inschool that has such legs as mine. I can barely reach around them withboth hands."
She pulled her short gingham skirt farther over her knees as she spoke,and stole a side glance at Phil to see if he were taking as serious aview of her troubles as the situation demanded. He was staring straightahead of him with a very grave face, for he had to draw it into a frownto keep from laughing outright.
"I'd give anything to be like Lloyd," she continued. "She's so straightand graceful, and she holds her head like a real princess. But she grewup that way, I suppose, and never did have a time of being dumpy likeme. They used to call her 'airy, fairy Lillian' when she was little,because she was so light on her feet."
"They might well call her that now," remarked Phil, looking toward theroad down which she was to appear. Mary, about to plunge into deeperconfidences, saw the glance, and saw that he had shifted his position inorder to watch for the coming of the girls. She felt that he was not asinterested as she had supposed. Maybe he wouldn't care to hear how shestood every day in the tent before the mirror, to hold her shoulders asLloyd did, or throw back her head in the same spirited way. Maybe hewouldn't understand. Maybe he would think her vain and silly and acopy-cat, as Holland called her. Lloyd would not have rattled on the wayshe had been doing. Oh, why had she been born with such a runawaytongue!
Covered with confusion, she sat so long without speaking that Philglanced at her, wondering at the unusual silence. To his surprise therewas an expression of real distress on the plump little face, and thegray eyes were winking hard to keep back the tears.
"So that is the trouble, is it?" he said, kindly, not knowing what wasin her thought. "Well, it's a trouble you'll probably outgrow. I used togo to school with a girl that was nicknamed Jumbo, because she weighedso much, and she grew up to be as tall and slim as a rail; so you seethere is hope for you. In the meantime, you are a very sensible littlegirl to take the lesson of the bees to heart. Just seal up your trouble,and don't bother your head about it, and be your own cheerful, happylittle self. People can't help loving you when you are that way, andthey don't want you to be one mite different."
Phil felt like a grandfather as he gave this bit of advice. He did notsee the look of supreme happiness which crossed Mary's face, for at thatmoment the girls came riding up to the house, and he sprang up to meetthem.
"I'll unsaddle the ponies," he said, taking the bridles as the girlsslid to the ground, and starting toward the pasture. By the time hereturned, Mary had carried some chairs out to the hammock, and Joycehad brought a pitcher of lemonade.
"Come, drink to the success of my new undertaking," she called. "It'sall so far off in the future that mamma says I'm counting my chickensbefore they are hatched, but--I'm going into the bee business, Phil. Mr.Shaw will let me have a hive of gold-banded Italian bees for eightdollars. I don't know when I'll ever earn that much money, but I'll doit some day. Then that hive will swarm, and the new swarms will swarm,and with the honey they make I'll buy more hives. There is such a longhoney-making time every year in
this land of flowers, that I'll beowning a ranch as big as Mr. Shaw's some day, see if I don't! I alwayswanted a garden like Grandmother Ware's, with a sun-dial and a beehivein it, just for the artistic effect, but I never dreamed of making afortune out of it."
"And I intend to get some hives as soon as I go back to Locust," saidLloyd. "It will be the easiest way in the world to raise money for ou'Ordah of Hildegarde. That's the name of the club I belong to," sheexplained to Phil. "One of its objects is to raise money for the poahgirls in the mountain schools. We get so tiahed of the evahlastingembroidery and fancy work, and, as Mr. Ellestad says, this is sointeresting, and one can learn so much from the bees."
"That's what Mary was telling me," said Phil, gravely. "But I mustconfess I never got much out of them. I investigated them once when Iwas a small boy--stirred up the hive with a stick, and by the time I wasrescued I was pretty well puffed up. Not with a sense of my wisdom,however. They stung me nearly to death. So I've rather shrunk fromhaving any more dealings with them."
"You can't deny that they gave you a good lesson in minding your ownbusiness," laughed Lloyd.
"Well, I don't care to have so many teachers after me, all teaching methe same thing. I prefer variety in my instructors."
"They don't all teach the same thing," cried Joyce, enthusiastically. "Ihad no idea how the work was divided up until I began to study them.People have watched them through glass hives, you know, with blackshutters. They have nurses to tend the nymphs and larvae, and ladies ofhonour, who wait on the queen, and never let her out of their sight. Andisn't it odd, they are exactly like human beings in one thing, theynever turn their back on the queen. Then there are the house bees, whoboth air and heat the hives by fanning their wings, and sometimes theyhelp to evaporate the honey in the same way, when there is more water inthe flower nectar than usual. There are architects, masons, waxworkers,and sculptors, and the foragers, who go out to the flowers for thepollen and nectar. Some are chemists, who let a drop of formic acid fallfrom the end of their stings to preserve the honey, and some are capsulemakers, who seal down the cells when the honey is ripe. Besides allthese are the sweepers, who spend their time sweeping the tiny streets,and the bearers, who remove the corpses, and the amazons of the guard,who watch by the threshold night and day, and seem to require some kindof a countersign of all who pass, just like real soldiers. Some areartists, too, as far as knowing colours is concerned. They get redpollen from the mignonette, and yellow pollen from the lilies, and theynever mix them. They always store them in separate cells in thestorerooms."
"Whew!" whistled Phil, beginning to fan himself with his hat as Joycepaused. "Anything more? It takes a girl with a fad to deluge a fellowwith facts."
"Tell him about the drones," said Lloyd, meaningly. She resented beinglaughed at. "_They_ don't like the school of the bees eithah. IfAristotle and Cato and Pliny and those old philosophahs could spend timestudying them, _you_ needn't tuh'n up yoah nose at them!"
Lloyd turned away indignantly, but she looked so pretty with her eyesflashing, and the colour coming up in her cheeks, that Phil was temptedto keep on teasing them about their fad, as he called it. His antagonismto it was all assumed at first, but he began to feel a real resentmentas the days wore on. It interfered too often with his plans. Severaltimes he had walked up to the ranch to find Mr. Ellestad there ahead ofhim with a new book on bee culture, or an interesting account of somenew experiment, or some ride was spoiled because, when he called, thegirls had gone to Shaw's ranch to spend the afternoon.
Joyce and Lloyd purposely pointed all their morals, and illustrated alltheir remarks whenever they could, by items learned at the School of theBees, until Phil groaned aloud whenever the little honey-makers werementioned.
"If you had been Shapur you nevah would have followed that bee to theRose Garden of Omah, would you?" asked Lloyd, one day when they hadbeen discussing the legend of Camelback.
"No," answered Phil, "nothing could tempt me to follow one of thoseirritating little creatures."
"Not even to reach the City of yoah Desiah?"
"My City of Desire would have been right in that oasis, probably, if Ihad been Shapur. The story said, 'Water there was for him to drink, andthe fruit of the date-palm.' He had everything to make him comfortable,so what was the use of going around with an ambition like a burningsimoom in his breast."
"I don't believe that you have a bit of ambition," said Lloyd, in adisapproving tone that nettled Phil. "Have you?"
"I can't say that it keeps me awake of nights," laughed Phil. "And Ican't see that anybody is any happier or more comfortable for being alltorn up over some impossible thing he is for ever reaching after, andnever can get hold of."
"Neahly everybody I know is like Shapur," said Lloyd, musingly. "Joyceis wild to be an artist, and Betty to write books, and Holland to gointo the navy, and Jack to be at the head of the mines. Papa haspromised him a position in the mine office as soon as he learns Spanish,and he is pegging away at it every spare minute. He says Jack will makea splendid man, for it is his great ambition to be just like his fathah,who was so steady-going and reliable and honahable in all he undahtook,that he had the respect of everybody. Papa says Jack will make just thekind of man that is needed out heah to build up this new country, and heexpects great things of him some day. He says that a boy who is sofaithful in small things is bound to be faithful to great ones of publictrust."
"What is your City of Desire?" asked Phil, who did not relish the turnthe conversation had taken. He liked Jack, but he didn't want Lloyd tosing his praises so enthusiastically.
"Oh, I'm only a girl without any especial talent," answered Lloyd, "so Ican't expect to amount to as much as Joyce and Betty. But I want to liveup to our club motto, and to leave a Road of the Loving Heart behind mein everybody's memory, and to be just as much like mothah and mybeautiful Grandmothah Amanthis as I can. A home-makah, grandfathah says,is moah needed in the world than an artist or an authah. He consoles methat way sometimes, when I feel bad because I can't do the things I'dlike to. But it is about as hard to live up to his ideal of ahome-makah, as to reach any othah City of Desiah. He expects so much ofme."
"But what would your ambition be if you were a boy?" asked Phil, lazilyleaning back in the hammock to watch her.
"If I were a boy," she repeated. A light leaped up into her face, andunconsciously her head took its high, princesslike pose. "If I were aboy, and could go out into the world and do all sawts of fine things, Iwouldn't be content to sit down beside the well and the palm-tree. I'dwant something to do that was hard and brave, and that would try mymettle. I'd want to fight my way through all sawts of dangahs anddifficulties. I couldn't beah to be nothing but a drone, and not haveany paht in the world's hive-making and honey-making."
"Look here," said Phil, his face flushing, "you girls are associatingwith bees entirely too much. You're learning to sting."