L. Frank Baum (10 page)

Swimming softly here and there in the lovely waters of the Lustrous
Lake, the fishes sang this song:

"We are the fishes of the lake;
Our lives are very deep;
We're always active when awake
And quiet when asleep.

"We get our fins from Finland,
From books we get out tales;
Our eyes they come from Eyerland
And weighty are our scales.

"We love to flop and twist and turn
Whenever 'tis our whim.
Yet social etiquette we learn
Because we're in the swim.

"Our beds, though damp, are always made;
We need no fires to warm us;
When we swim out we're not afraid,
For autos cannot harm us.

"We're independent little fish
And never use umbrellas.
We do exactly as we wish
And live like jolly fellows."

As the fishes concluded their song they leaped high into the air and
then plunged under the water and disappeared, and it was hard to tell
which sparkled most brilliantly, their gold and silver bodies or the
spray of jewels they scattered about them as they leaped.

"If you should dive into this lake," said Ephel the Messenger, "your
feathers would be dripping wet when you came out again. It is here we
Birds of Paradise bathe each morning, after which we visit the Gleaming
Glade to perform our Beauty Dance."

"I should like to see that glade," said Twinkle, who was determined to
let nothing escape her that she could possibly see.

"You shall," answered Ephel, promptly. "We will fly there at once."

So he led the way and presently they entered a thicker grove of trees
than any they had before noticed. The trunks were so close together
that the birds could only pass between then in single file, but as they
proceeded in this fashion it was not long before they came to a
circular space which the child-lark knew at once must be the Gleaming
Glade.

The floor was of polished gold, and so bright that as they stood upon
it they saw their forms reflected as in a mirror. The trees surrounding
them were also of gold, being beautifully engraved with many attractive
designs and set with rows of brilliant diamonds. The leaves of the
trees, however, were of burnished silver, and bore so high a gloss that
each one served as a looking-glass, reproducing the images of those
standing in the glade thousands of times, whichever way they chanced to
turn.

The gleam of these mirror-like leaves was exceedingly brilliant, but
Ephel said this radiance was much stronger in the morning, when the
rosy glow of the atmosphere was not so powerful.

"Then," said he, "the King Bird and all the Nobility of Paradise, who
rejoice in the most brilliant plumage, come here from their bath and
dance upon the golden floor the Beauty Dance, which keeps their blood
warm until the feathers have all dried. While they dance they can
admire their reflections in the mirrors, which adds greatly to their
pleasure."

"Don't they have music to dance by?" asked Chubbins.

"Of course," the Messenger replied. "There is a regular orchestra that
plays exquisite music for the dance; but the musicians are the female
Birds of Paradise, who, because their plumage is a modest brown, are
not allowed to take part in the Beauty Dance."

"I think the brown birds with the soft gray breasts are just as pretty
as the gaily clothed ones," said Twinkle. "The male birds are too
bright, and tire my eyes."

Ephel did not like this speech, for he was very proud of his own
gorgeous coloring; but he was too polite to argue with his guest, so he
let the remark pass.

"You have now witnessed the most attractive scenes in our favored
land," he said; "but there are some curious sights in the suburbs that
might serve to interest you."

"Oh! have you suburbs, too?" she asked.

"Yes, indeed. We do not like to come into too close contact with the
coarse, outer world, so we have placed the flying things that are not
birds midway between our Paradise and the great forest. They serve us
when we need them, and are under our laws and regulations; but they are
so highly favored by being permitted to occupy the outer edge of our
glorious Paradise that they willingly obey their masters. After all,
they live happy lives, and their habits, as I have said, may amuse you.

"Who are they?" enquired Chubbins.

"Come with me, and you shall see for yourselves."

They flew away from the grove of the Gleaming Glade and Ephel led them
by pleasant routes into a large garden with many pretty flowers in it.
Mostly it was filled with hollyhocks—yellow, white, scarlet and
purple.

As they approached they heard a low, humming sound, which grew louder
as they advanced and aroused their curiosity.

"What is it?" asked Twinkle, at last.

Ephel answered: "It is the suburb devoted to the bees."

"But bees are not birds!" exclaimed Twinkle.

"No; as I have told you, the suburbs contain flying things that cannot
be called birds, and so are unable to live in our part of the Paradise.
But because they have wings, and love all the flowers and fruits as we
do ourselves, we have taken them under our protection."

Ephel perched upon a low bush, and when the child-larks had settled
beside him he uttered a peculiar, shrill whistle. The humming sound
grew louder, then, and presently hundreds of great bees rose above the
flower tops and hovered in the air. But none of them approached the
bush except one monstrous bumble-bee that had a body striped with black
and gold, and this one sailed slowly toward the visitors and alighted
gracefully upon a branch in front of them.

The bee was all bristling with fine hairs and was nearly half as big as
Twinkle herself; so the girl shrank back in alarm, and cried:

"Oh-h-h! I'm afraid it will sting me!"

"How ridiculous!" answered the bee, laughing in a small but merry
voice. "Our stings are only for our enemies, and we have no enemies in
this Paradise; so we do not use our stingers at all. In fact, I'd
almost forgotten I had one, until you spoke."

The words were a little mumbled, as if the insect had something in its
mouth, but otherwise they were quite easy to understand.

"Permit me to introduce her Majesty the Queen Bee," said their guide.
"These, your highness, are some little child-larks who are guests of
our King. I have brought them to visit you."

"They are very welcome," returned the Queen Bee. "Are you fond of
honey?" she asked, turning to the children.

"Sometimes," replied Chubbins; "but we've just eaten, and we're chock
full now."

"You see," the Queen remarked, "my people are all as busy as bees
gathering the honey from every flower."

"What do you do with it?" asked Twinkle.

"Oh, we eat part of it, and store up the rest for a rainy day."

"Does it ever rain here?" enquired Chubbins.

"Sometimes, at night, when we are all asleep, so as to refresh and
moisten the flowers, and help them to grow."

"But if it rains at night, there can't be any rainy days," remarked
Twinkle; "so I can't see the use of saving your honey."

"Nor can I," responded the Queen, laughing again in her pleasant way.
"Out in the world people usually rob us of our stores, and so keep us
busy getting more. But here there are not even robbers, so that the
honey has been accumulating until we hardly know what to do with it. We
have built a village of honeycombs, and I have just had my people make
me a splendid palace of honey. But it is our way to gather the sweet
stuff, whether we need it or not, so we have to act according to our
natures. I think of building a mountain of honey next."

"I'd like to see that honey palace," said Twinkle.

"Then come with me," answered the Queen Bee, "for it will give me
pleasure to show it to you."

"Shall we go?" asked the girl-lark, turning to Ephel.

"Of course," he returned. "It is quite a wonderful sight, and may
interest you."

So they all flew away, the Queen Bee taking the lead, and passed
directly over the bed of flowers with its swarm of buzzing, busy bees.

"They remind me of a verse from 'Father Goose,'" said Twinkle, looking
curiously but half fearfully at the hundreds of big insects.

"What is the verse?" asked the Queen.

"Why, it goes this way," answered the girl:

"'A bumble-bee was buzzing on a yellow hollyhock
When came along a turtle, who at the bee did mock,
Saying "Prithee, Mr. Bumble, why make that horrid noise?
It's really distracting, and every one annoys."

"'"I'm sorry," said, quite humble, the busy droning bee,
"The noise is just my bumble, and natural, you see.
And if I didn't buzz so I'm sure that you'll agree
I'd only be a big fly, and not a bumble-bee."'"

"That is quite true," said the bee, "and describes our case exactly.
But you should know that we are not named 'bumblebees' by rights, but
'Humble Bees.' The latter is our proper name."

"But why 'humble?'" asked Twinkle.

"Because we are common, work-a-day people, I suppose, and not very
aristocratic," was the reply. "I've never heard why they changed our
name to 'bumble,' but since you recited that verse I imagine it is on
account of the noise our wings make."

They had now passed over the flower beds and approached a remarkable
village, where the houses were all formed of golden-yellow honey-combs.
There were many pretty shapes among these houses, and some were large
and many stories in height while others were small and had but one
story. Some had spires and minarets reaching up into the air, and all
were laid out into streets just like a real village.

But in the center stood a great honey-comb building with so many gables
and roofs and peaks and towers that it was easy to guess it was the
Queen Bee's palace, of which she had spoken.

They flew in at a second-story window and found themselves in a big
room with a floor as smooth as glass. Yet it was composed of man
six-sided cells filled with honey, which could be seen through the
transparent covering. The walls and roof were of the same material, and
at the end of the room was a throne shaped likewise of the honey cells,
like everything else. On a bench along the wall sat several fat and
sleepy-looking bumble-bees, who scarcely woke up when their queen
entered.

"Those are the drones," she said to her visitors. "It is useless to
chide them for their laziness, because they are too stupid to pay
attention to even a good scolding. Don't mind them in any way."

After examining the beautiful throne-room, they visited the sleeping
chambers, of which there were many, and afterward the parlors and
dining-room and the work-rooms.

In these last were many bees building the six-sided pockets or cells
for storing the honey in, or piling them up in readiness for the return
of those who were gathering honey from the flowers.

"We are not really honey-bees," remarked the Queen; "but gathering
honey is our chief business, after all, and we manage to find a lot of
it."

"Won't your houses melt when it rains?" asked Twinkle.

"No, for the comb of the honey is pure wax," the Queen Bee replied.
"Water does not melt it at all."

"Where do you get all the wax?" Chubbins enquired.

"From the flowers, of course. It grows on the stamens, and is a fine
dust called pollen, until we manufacture it into wax. Each of my bees
carries two sacks, one in front of him, to put the honey in, and one
behind to put the wax in."

"That's funny," said the boy-lark.

"I suppose it may be, to you," answered the Queen, "but to us it is a
very natural thing."

Ephel and the children now bade the good-natured Queen Bee good-bye,
and thanked her for her kindness. The Messenger led them far away to
another place that he called a "suburb," and as they emerged from a
thick cluster of trees into a second flower garden they found the air
filled with a great assemblage of butterflies, they being both large
and small in size and colored in almost every conceivable manner.

Twinkle and Chubbins had seen many beautiful butterflies, but never
such magnificent ones as these, nor so many together at one time. Some
of them had wings fully as large as those of the Royal Messenger
himself, even when he spread them to their limit, and the markings of
these big butterfly wings were more exquisite than those found upon the
tail-feathers of the proudest peacocks.

The butterflies paid no attention to their visitors, but continued to
flutter aimlessly from flower to flower. Chubbins asked one of them a
question, but got no reply.

"Can't they talk?" he enquired of Ephel.

"Yes," said the Messenger, "they all know how to talk, but when they
speak they say nothing that is important. They are brainless, silly
creatures, for the most part, and are only interesting because they are
beautiful to look at. The King likes to watch the flashes of color as
they fly about, and so he permits them to live in this place. They are
very happy here, in their way, for there is no one to chase them or to
stick pins through them when they are caught."

Just then a chime of bells tinkled far away in the distance, and the
Royal Messenger listened intently and then said:

"It is my summons to his Majesty the King. We must return at once to
the palace."

So they flew into the air again and proceeded to cross the lovely
gardens and pass through the avenues of jewelled trees and the fragrant
orchards and groves until they came at last to the royal bower of white
flowers.

The child-larks entered with their guide and found the gorgeous King
Bird of Paradise still strutting on his perch on the golden bush and
enjoying the admiring glances of his courtiers and the ladies of his
family. He turned as the children entered and addressed his Messenger,
saying: