oor sipsyrup! how sadly she stood at the entrance of the hive, where her gentle preserver had left her. the fine down, of which she had been so vain, was all rubbed and injured by her struggles in the web; one of her elegant wings was torn; she felt that all her beauty was gone! she had hardly courage to enter the hive, and was ashamed to be seen by the busy bees flocking in and out of the door. i am not sure that insects can sigh, or i am certain that she must have sighed very deeply. the first thing that gave her the least feeling of comfort was the[60] sound of silverwing’s friendly hum;—the poor wounded insect exerted her feeble strength, and crept timidly into the hive.
“sipsyrup!—can it be!” cried honeyball, rousing herself from a nap as the bee brushed past her.
“sipsyrup, looking as though she had been in the wars!” exclaimed waxywill, who, in the pride of her heart, had always looked with contempt on her vain, silly companion.
“my poor sipsyrup!” cried silverwing, hastening towards her. their feelers met (that is the way of embracing in bee-land), the kind bee said little, but by every friendly act in her power showed her pity and anxiety to give comfort.
what pleased sipsyrup most was the absence of stickasting, who had not returned to the hive which she had left an hour before in a passion.
after resting for a little on a half-finished cell, while silverwing with her slender tongue gently smoothed her ruffled down,[61] and brought a drop of honey to refresh her, sipsyrup felt well enough to relate her sad story, to which a little group of surrounding bees listened with no small interest. sipsyrup left altogether out of her account the fine compliments paid her by spinaway, she could not bear that her vanity should be known; but she gained little by hiding the truth, as this only made her folly appear more unaccountable.
[62]
minnie at the hive.
[63]“i cannot understand,” said waxywill, “how any bee in her senses could fly into a web with her eyes open.”
“when there was not even a drop of honey to be gained by it,” hummed honeyball.
sipsyrup hastened to the end of her story, and related how she had been saved from the spider by the timely help of a kind little girl.
“may she live upon eglantine all her life,” exclaimed silverwing with enthusiasm, “and have her home quite overflowing with honey and pollen!”
[64]“this is the strangest part of your adventure,” said honey ball; “this is the very first time in my life that i ever heard of kindness shown to an insect by a human being.”
“i thought that bees were sometimes fed by them in winter,” suggested silverwing.
“fed with sugar and water!—fit food for a bee!” cried honeyball, roused to indignation upon the only subject that stirred her up to anything like excitement. “and have you never heard how whole swarms have been barbarously murdered, smothered in the hive which they had filled with so much labour, that greedy man might feast upon their spoils!”
“if you talk of greediness, honeyball,” drily observed waxywill, “i should say, keep your tongue in a sheath.”
“i am glad that it is not the custom for men to eat bees as well as their honey,” laughed silverwing.
“oh, they are barbarous to everything,[65] whether they eat it or not,” exclaimed waxywill, with an angry buzz. “have i not seen a poor butterfly, basking in the sun, glittering in her vest of purple and gold—ah, sipsyrup, in your very best day, you were no better than a blackbeetle compared to her!”
an hour before, sipsyrup would have felt ready to sting waxywill for such an insolent speech, but the pride of the poor bee was humbled; and when waxywill observed her silence and noticed her drooping looks, she felt secretly ashamed of her provoking words. she continued: “have i not seen the butterfly, i say, dancing through the air, as though life was all sunshine and joy!—i have seen a boy look on her—not to admire, not to feel pleasure in beholding her beauty, but eager to lay that beauty in the dust, and seize on his little victim. i have watched him creeping softly, his hat in his hand, as anxious about his prize, as if to destroy a poor insect’s happiness was the way to secure[66] his own. now the unconscious butterfly rose, high above the reach of her pursuer, then sank again to earth, to rest upon a flower, whose tints were less bright than its wings. down came the hat—there was a shout from the boy—the butterfly was prisoner at last. if he had caught it to eat it, as the spider caught sipsyrup, i could have forgiven him—for men as well as bees must have food, and i suspect that they do not live entirely upon honey; but it made me wish for a hundred stings when i saw the wretched insect lying on the ground, fluttering in the agonies of death. the boy had barbarously torn off its bright beautiful wings, and had not even the mercy to put it out of pain by setting his foot upon it.”
“it had never injured him,” murmured silverwing.
“it had never injured any one—it desired nothing but to be allowed to spend its short life in peace.”
“how would the boy have liked to have[67] had his wings torn off,” said honeyball, “for the amusement of some creature stronger than himself?”
“men and boys are worse than hornets,” muttered waxywill.
“but we have found one of human-kind,” hummed silverwing cheerfully, “who could be merciful even to a bee. perhaps in the world there may be others like her, too noble, too generous to use their strength to torture and destroy what cannot resist them.”
waxywill and honeyball now took their departure—i fear rather for their own pleasure than for the benefit of the hive; as waxywill was not in a humour to work, and honeyball was always in a humour to idle. as soon as they had flown out of reach of hearing, poor sipsyrup said, in a very dull tone,—
“i wonder what is to become of me now, poor unhappy insect that i am. i fear that i shall never be able to fly; and to live on[68] here in this wretched way is almost worse than to be eaten by a spider.”
“oh, you should not say so,” replied gentle silverwing; “you can still crawl about, and you are safe in your own home.”
“safe!—i am miserable! with what pleasure i had thought of joining the first swarm that should fly off. i am tired of the hive—this noisy, bustling hive—i have lost everything that i cared for, everything that made life pleasant—my beauty, my strength, my power of flying; i have nothing left—”
“but your duties,” added silverwing; “make them your pleasures. my dear friend, if you no more can be pretty, you may still be useful; if you no more can be admired, you can still be loved. you may not be able to go far, or to see much; but there are better joys to be found in your own home.”
before the night closed, both the little nurse-bees were busy feeding the larv?.
