The Queen Bee and Other Nature Stories Part 4

"Nor I! Nor I!" cried the others in one voice.

But one of them took courage and peeped out over the earth.

"Good-morning!" cried the withered beech leaves. "It is a little too early, little lady. I hope you will be none the worse for it."

"Isn't it my Lady Spring?" inquired the anemone.

"Not yet," answered the beech leaves. "It is only the green beech leaves that you were so angry with last summer. The green has gone from us, so we have no great finery to boast of now. We have enjoyed our youth and had our fling, I can tell you. And now we lie here and protect all the little flowers in the earth against the winter."

"And meanwhile _I_ stand shivering in all my bare boughs," said the beech peevishly.

The anemones talked it over one to another down below in the earth, and thought it was grand.

"Those grand beech leaves!" they said.

"Mind you remember this next summer when I burst into leaf," said the beech.

"We will! we will!" whispered the anemones.

But that sort of promise is easily made--and easily broken.

THE MIST

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MIST]

The sun had just gone down.

The frog was croaking his "good-night," which lasted so long that there seemed no end to it. The bee was creeping into its hive, and little children were crying because they had to go to bed. The flower was closing up its petals and bowing its head; the bird was tucking its bill under its wing; and the stag was laying himself down to rest in the tall, soft gra.s.s in the glade of the wood.

From the village church the bells were ringing for sunset, and when that was over the old clerk went home. On his way he had a little chat or two with the people who were out for an evening stroll, or were standing before their gate and smoking a pipe till they bade him good-night and shut the door.

Then it grew quite quiet, and the darkness fell. There was a light in the parson's house, and there was one also in the doctor's. But the farmers' houses were dark, because in summer-time the farmers get up so early that they must go early to bed.

And then the stars began to twinkle, and the moon crept higher and higher up the sky. Down in the village a dog was barking. But it must have been barking in a dream, for there was nothing to bark at.

"Is there anybody there?" asked the mist.

But n.o.body answered, for n.o.body was there. So the mist issued forth in her bright, airy robes. She went dancing over the meadows, up and down, to and fro. Then she lay quite still for a moment, and then she took to dancing again. Out over the lake she skipped and deep into the wood, where she threw her long, damp arms round the trunks of the trees.

"Who are you, my friend?" asked the night-violet,[A] who stood there giving forth fragrance just to please herself.

[Footnote A: An inconspicuous flower which in Denmark is very fragrant in the evening, the "night-smelling rocket" (_Hesperis tristis_).]

The mist did not answer, but went on dancing.

"I asked you who you were," said the night-violet. "And as you don't answer me, I conclude that you are a rude person."

"I will now conclude _you_," said the mist. And then she spread herself round the night-violet, so that her petals were dashed with wet.

"Oh, oh!" cried the night-violet. "Keep your fingers to yourself, my friend. I have a feeling as if I had been dipped in the pond. You have no reason for getting so angry just because I asked you who you are."

The mist let go of her again.

"Who am I?" she said. "You could not understand even if I told you."

"Try," said the night-violet.

"I am the dewdrop on the flower, the cloud in the sky, and the mist on the meadow," said the mist.

"I beg your pardon," said the night-violet. "Would you mind saying that again? The dewdrop I know. It settles every morning on my leaves, and I don't think it is at all like you."

"No; but it is I all the same," said the mist mournfully. "But no one knows me. I must live my life under many shapes. One time I am dew, and another time I am rain; and yet another time I babble as a clear, cool streamlet through the wood. But when I dance on the meadows in the evening, men say that it is the marsh-lady brewing."

"It is a strange story," said the night-violet. "Do you mind telling it to me? The night is long, and I sometimes get a little bored by it."'

"It is a sad story," answered the mist. "But you may have it and welcome."

But when she was about to lie down the night-violet shook with terror in all her petals.

"Be so kind as to keep at a little distance," she said, "at least till you have properly introduced yourself. I have never cared to be on familiar terms with people I don't know."

So the mist lay down a little way off and began her story:--

"I was born deep down in the earth--far deeper than your roots go.

There I and my sisters--for we are a large family, you must understand--came into the world as waves of a hidden spring, pure and clear as crystal; and for a long time we had to stay in our hiding-place. But one day we suddenly leapt from a hillside into the full light of the sun. You can well imagine how delightful it was to come tumbling down through the wood. We hopped over stones and rippled against the bank. Pretty little fishes gambolled amongst us, and the trees bent over so that their beautiful green was reflected in our waters. If a leaf fell, we cradled it and fondled it and carried it out with us into the wide world. Ah, that was delightful! It was indeed the happiest time of my life."

"But when are you going to tell me how you came to turn into mist?"

asked the night-violet impatiently. "I know all about the underground spring. When the air is quite still, I can hear it murmur from where I stand."

The mist lifted herself a little and took a turn round the meadow.

Then she came back, and went on with her story:--

"It is the worst of this world that one is never contented with what one has. So it was with us. We kept running on and on, till at last we ran into a great lake, where water-lilies rocked on the water and dragon-flies hummed on their great stiff wings. Up on the surface the lake was clear as a mirror. But whether we wished it or not, we had to run right down by the bottom, where it was dark and gruesome. And this I could not endure. I longed for the sunbeams. I knew them so well from the time I used to run in the brook. There they used to peep down through the leaves and pa.s.s over me in fleeting gleams. I longed so much to see them again that I stole up to the surface, and lay down in the sunshine all amongst the white water-lilies and their great green leaves. But, ugh! how the sun burnt me there on the lake! It was scarcely bearable. Bitterly did I regret that I had not stopped down below."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EVENING HOUR]

"I can't say this part of your story is very amusing," said the night-violet. "Isn't the mist soon coming?"

"Here it is!" said the mist, and dropped down once more on the flower, so that it nearly had the breath squeezed out of it.

"Ough! ough!" shrieked the night-violet. "Upon my word, you are the most ill-natured person I have ever known. Move off, and go on with your story, since it must be so."

"In the evening, when the sun had set, I suddenly became wonderfully light," said the mist. "I don't know how it came about, but I thought I could rise up from the lake and fly; and before I knew anything about it, I was drifting over the water, far away from the dragon-flies and the water-lilies. The evening breeze bore me away. I flew high up into the air, and there I met many of my sisters, who had been just as eager for novelty as myself, and had had the same fate.

We drifted across the sky, for, you see, we had become clouds."