Consolation

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WHO APPRECIATES? 885

honey so it would be sweet enough and thick enough, and so it would never spoil. When the cells were full they were capped over with wax. Sometimes she left her home too late to get back before dark. When she did, her legs got stiff and her wings also, and she had to sleep in the grass until the sun warmed her up in the morning; for when she was cold she could not fly she — could hardly crawl. This little worker bee was hatched some time in May. Before August was half gone, her wings were getting ragged and frayed and she could not work as well nor fly so far. She was an old bee. Many a thorn had scratched and torn her pretty wings. Many a gust of wind, full of sand and sticks, had beaten her down to the ground. She had always come up again with her happy buzz, and in a hurry to get back to her task. She seemed to know that every hour the summer was passing away, and may be she knew that her own life would be short. One extremely hard, windy day she could only make one trip for honey. She fell to the ground many times before she reached home. The end of one of her wings was broken, and she walked quite slowly and with some pain into the hive. But she could be heard buzzing long after dark Over the cell she had just filled. She was still happy. The next morning she came out of the hive and tried to fly away for more honey, but she only went a short distance and fell into the grass. She tried several times but could not reach her home again. All alone, down there in the grass, she spent her last night; and when the sun rose the next morning to bring joy and warmth to the earth again, she was dead. But she had been happy in the thought of the many cells of pure honey she had made. This little bee might have been a queen, had nature needed her for that, but bees must not all be queens, or there would be no honey, and she knew how important her work was. Altogether she had made a spoon full of honey. All her lifetime had been given to making a spoonful of honey; but it was excellent honey, and it was a good life's work. Not many bees had done better than she. At the table a little girl asked for some honey. It was so clear and fresh and sweet and pure. She was given a spoonful; and it was the very spoonful that our dear little bee had made She tasted the honey and ate a little of it, but most of it was left. She said, "I don't like this honey. It's too sweet." The spoonful of honey was thrown into the sink and washed into the sewer. Rexburg, Idaho