The South Wind whisked in one morning early in April. Everybody down by the creek was surprised to see her, for the day before had been gloomy and rainy enough to discourage even the most hopeful. Nobody asked her what train she came nor how long she would stay, for everyone was too delighted to do anything except welcome and thank her for the lovely gifts she brought.
Her traveling case must have been enormous, for she had spring gowns for all the willows, some trimmed with golden tassels and some with silvery fur; and there were dainty pink stripes for the spring beauties, waxen white for the bloodroot, and delicate lavender for the hepaticas.
The dandelions and the violets whimpered a bit because she had forgotten them, but the South Wind comforted them by saying her trunks would be there in a few days, and then there would be the sweetest things in the very latest flower styles for everybody.
The blossoms were laughing and talking joyously when a drowsy voice broke in somewhat rudely upon their happiness.
"Buz-z, buz-z-z," grumbled the voice. "What do you mean by making such a commotion and waking me from my sleep? I wasn't half through my nap, I tell you."
The flowers stopped short in their merry-making, and stared wide-eyed at the speaker. Velvet-clad and golden-banded, cross and sleepy was this personage, but for all that, there was a twinkle in the eye.
"Ho! ho!" laughed the Willow, "If it isn't Sir Bumblebee! Come along, that's a good fellow! We have plenty of pollen for you to carry."
"Don't be impertinent," grumbled the bee. "I'd have you know that I'm a lady, and a queen at that, you stupid willows! Only queen bumblebees live through the winter. You ought to know that. Well, well, there is plenty of work to be done, so perhaps it is best to get at it early."
So, after rubbing her eyes, shaking herself, and taking a sip of honey, she boomed away on her dusky wings.
"Now for palace-hunting," said the queen to herself. "I remember my mother told me she chose a cozy corner under a big stone, but that does not seem quite royal to me. Let us see what we have here."
It was only a deserted field-mouse's nest tucked away among slender dead grass stems, but to the queen it was most attractive.
"Just the thing for a palace, so spacious and unique," she buzzed; "but first it needs a good cleaning."
She went to work and labored all day, and when twilight came it was as dainty and neat as a queen bee could make it.
Bright and early next morning she began bringing load after load of pollen in the little baskets she always carried with her. Then she would fly away in search of honey to mix with the pollen into delicious bee-bread. But for these things the flowers expected some return, not in money, but in favors. So the honest queen, besides working for herself, flew faithfully from flower to flower, carrying pollen in payment to each.
After a few days she had her ball of honey and pollen ready, stored with the tiny eggs that soon hatched out into bee babies, lively little grubs that fed greedily enough upon the bee-bread their mother had packed so carefully about them. The queen was very fond of her children, and when they had spun their cocoons and gone cozily to sleep in their silken cradles she covered them over with wax, that they might be quite safe.
"Now, my dears," she called one sunny morning, "it's time for little bees to be on the wing." Out they crept, the bonniest brood in black and gold and gauzy wings that a bee mother ever owned.
How happy they were as they flew away into the sunshine, doing all the work now, so that the tired mother could rest and spend all her time placing the precious eggs in the pollen-ballos they prepared for her.
The orchards were misty with the pink and white of apple and peach, and here among the sweet drifts of blossoms the bees lost themselves. They were always at work from morning until twilight, for at home there were more hungry little mouths to feed, as bee babies came many and fast; and, besides, there were guests at the palace. At this the young bees had grumbled, saying they had enough to do. But the queen told them that there never was a court without its hangers-on, and that the court of a bumblebee was no exception. In every bumblebee palace are found the guest bees, who neither make wax nor bring honey or pollen. Yet they must be treated as guests of honor, in accordance with the ancient custom of the royal House of Bees.
The good queen often talked to her children of their duty, of all that their journeyings meant to the sweet flowers, and of how their work might best be performed.
"My dears," she said, "foolish men, not understanding the close friendship between the bees and flowers, once carried the red clover to a strange land where clovers had never grown and where no bumblebees lived. The clover grew and blossomed beautifully, but there was not a single good seed to plant for the next year's crop. Why? Because the red clover has a deep honey-horn and depends on our long tongues to drink her honey and carry her pollen from blossom to blossom; to do for her the service she cannot in any possible way do for herself. So man had to carry some of us to that far-off land to help her before she could bear seed."
She taught her children, too, the proper way to enter flowers, telling them that no bee should be a mere gadabout, but a faithful, cheery worker, and that they must always do their best, not only in bringing home honey and pollen, but in paying their great debt to the flowers.
"Now," she said, "when you come to the stately foxglove in the garden, you must always begin at the lowest blossom. Go right in without knocking, for she is expecting you, and will be glad to have you fill your baskets and drink of her honey. All that she asks in return is that when she dusts your back with pollen you carry it as her gift to the blossom just above. So come out carefully and go into the next, and the next, until you reach the last open flower."
The bees liked to buzz-z-z over the garden, now drinking daintily from the cup of some creamy hollyhock. The slender columbine swayed beneath the weight of her burly visitors as they drank deep in her gorgeous horns of plenty, while the sunny little dandelion lifted her golden face for their kisses. The happy, faithful, patient bees were welcomed everywhere.
And this morning, when I was out in my garden, the flowers asked me to send this message to the boys and girls who read my story:
"Dear children
We know you love us, and we want to ask you to be kind to our friends, the bumblebees. Indeed, you may thank them when we bloom our brightest and best, for it is through their help our precious seed can be ripened. Think of this when you see one of our bees, and let it fly away, remembering it is one of the Father's faithful little workers."