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"Bumblebees never sting," said Lily; and Amelia believed her. When the foot-path ended, there was the riverbank. The two little girls sat down under a clump of brook willows and talked, while the river, full of green and blue and golden lights, slipped past them and never stopped. Then Lily proceeded to unfold a plan, which was not philosophical, but naughtily ingenious.
"I didn't know bumblebees could sting," said Florence. "Law now don't they?" said Bubbles, "mebbe they doesn't, hit might a been a wass, wasses sting I know. Come to think of it, hit was a wass." "Is that all of it?" asked Dimple. "I don't think it is a very long story." "Laws, Miss Dimple, you didn't reckon that was all," said Bubbles, loftily.
"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you each a honey box. And maybe you can catch some bumblebees, if you want to." Of course, the twins were delighted. And Johnnie Green appeared pleased too. Perhaps he should have told his little friends that his pet was not a bumblebee at all but a carpenter bee and that carpenter bees never sting people.
Naturally, the other twin was now more eager than ever to capture a bumblebee of his own. And since Johnnie did not want to disappoint a guest he soon suggested that they go over to the clover patch. "There's a lot of bumblebees over there, always," said Johnnie Green hopefully. So Buster had a free ride to the clover field; for his twin insisted on taking his new pet right along with him.
"We Bumblebees are very fond of butter-and-eggs. And we're about the only field people that know how to open a blossom and reach its nectar." Little Mrs. Ladybug waited to hear no more. "You've made a terrible blunder!" she told Daddy Longlegs hurriedly. And before he could answer her she had hastened away. Like many another jealous body, Mrs. Ladybug had behaved very foolishly.
The Indians call the honey-bee the white man's fly; and though they had long been acquainted with several species of bumblebees that yielded more or less honey, how gladly surprised they must have been when they discovered that, in the hollow trees where before they had found only coons or squirrels, they found swarms of brown flies with fifty or even a hundred pounds of honey sealed up in beautiful cells.
Rousseau is the spiritual ancestor of John Burroughs, Thompson-Seton, and all our scientific, unscientific and sentimental friends who flood us with Nature stories fiction, fake or fact. In his "Emile" he outlines our so-called pedagogic new-thought methods. Birds' nests, bumblebees, hornets' nests, leaves, buds, flowers, grasses, mosses, are schoolroom properties to which he often refers.
It is impossible to keep a hat neat if you use it to catch bumblebees and whisk 'em; to bail the water from a leaky boat; to catch minnows in; to put over honey-bees' nests, and to transport pebbles, strawberries, and hens' eggs. John usually carried a sling in his hand, or a bow, or a limber stick, sharp at one end, from which he could sling apples a great distance.
An interesting variation of the day came about whenever the mower found a bumblebees' nest. Jack loved honey, of course, and knew quite well what a bees' nest was, so the call, "Honey Jacky honey!" never failed to bring him in waddling haste to the spot. Jerking his nose up in token of pleasure, he would approach cautiously, for he knew that bees have stings.
Besides the common honey-bee there are many other species here fine mossy, burly fellows, who were nourished on the mountains thousands of sunny seasons before the advent of the domestic species. Among these are the bumblebees, mason-bees, carpenter-bees, and leaf-cutters.
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