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And all the Carpenter's neighbors gathered around him and said what a kind-hearted young gentleman he was, but that it was no more than you might expect of a queen's son. "The Carpenter must have been a dear friend of yours," quavered old Daddy Longlegs, tottering up to Buster and peering into his face. "Oh, no!" said Buster Bumblebee.
Eddie Elf laughed, Tilly and Timothy Toad chuckled, Gerty Gartersnake giggled, Wallie Woodpecker beat a tattoo on wood, Billie Bumblebee buzzed and Winnie Woodchuck sang a woodchuck song.
She had had no invitation to spend the winter in the fine, big house. But she didn't care to have her neighbors know that. "There's just one thing to do," Buster Bumblebee decided. "I'll ask the Carpenter Bee if he's building a house for her." So he went to the big poplar by the brook, where the Carpenter Bee lived.
"I'll hurry. And I'll be back as soon as I can bring one of your fellow- workers with me," Freddie Firefly promised. Since he was a person of his word, he went straight back to the home of the Bumblebee family in the meadow. Being used to finding his way about after dark, Freddie had no trouble reaching the Bumblebees' home. But rousing the household was an entirely different matter.
Troup and Fish bore him off in triumph to Fraunces' Tavern, where Stevens joined them immediately, hot, but exultant. "I've just passed our president, looking like an infuriated bumblebee," he cried. "I know he heard your speech from some hidden point of vantage. It was a great speech, Alec. What a pity Hugh Knox, Mr. Lytton, and Benny Yard were not there to hear.
Buster knew of an old tune called "The Bumblebee in the Pumpkin," and he cried with some heat that he could think of no reason why there shouldn't be "A Ladybug in a Pumpkin." "I told you my house was big the biggest one on the farm," Mrs. Ladybug reminded him. "Ah!" Chirpy Cricket exclaimed. "Now I know! You're going to live in the haystack.
Buster Bumblebee looked at the pumpkin. And then he darted straight to it. If there was a bee of any kind inside it, making that strange buzzing, he intended to have a good look at him. Though he alighted right on top of the pumpkin, which stood on the wide shelf in Farmer Green's carriage-house, Buster Bumblebee thought that the strange buzzing sound had grown fainter.
And how expressive, novel, and eccentric are these social customs! The garden salvia, for instance, slaps the burly bumblebee upon the back and marks him for her own as he is ushered in to the feast. The mountain-laurel welcomes the twilight moth with an impulsive multiple embrace.
No member of my family ever buzzed like that.... It must be a raising bee." "Perhaps you know best," said old Spot. "But the people here all say it's a bumblebee in a pumpkin." "What pumpkin?" Buster wanted to know. "Well, that one I suppose," old dog Spot told him, cocking an eye and an ear towards a big yellow pumpkin, which someone had set on a wide shelf on the wall.
A bumblebee was bobbing and swaying on a head of red clover, and the sudden swish of the hunting-crop left it a little disorganized mass of black and yellow down and broken wing-filaments. The glow in the dark eyes of the woman had died down again, and her voice was hard and lifeless when she said: "But not for me, Tom-Jeff; you ain't wantin' to kill him like my brother would, if I had one."
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