2
In one of the small hexagonal cells close to the princesses’ rooms lay a tiny little grub. She was the youngest of them all and had but quite lately come out of the egg. She could not see, but she could distinctly hear the grown-up bees talking outside; and meanwhile she lay quite still and just thought her own thoughts.
“I could do with a little more to eat,” she said and tapped at her door.
“You’ve got enough for today,” replied the old bee who crawled up and down outside in the passage and had been appointed head-nurse to the baby bees.
“Ah, but I’m hungry!” cried the little grub. “And then I want to have a princess’s room; I feel so cramped in here.”
“Oh, just listen to her!” said the old bee, sarcastically. “One would think she was a dainty little princess by the pretensions she puts forward! You were born to toil and drudge, my little friend. A common working-bee, that’s what you are; and you’ll never be anything else in all your days.”
“Ah, but I want to be a queen!” said the grub and thumped on the door.
The old bee, of course, made no reply to such silly trash, but went on to the others. Everywhere they were crying for more food; and the little grub could hear it all.
“It’s really hard,” she thought, “that we should be so hungry.”
And then she tapped on the wall and called to the princess on the other side:
“Give me a little of your honey! Let me come in to you in your room. I am lying here and starving and I am quite as good as you.”
“Ah, you just wait till I’m queen-regnant!” said the princess. “Be sure I shan’t forget your impudence.”
But she had hardly said this before the other princesses began to bawl most terribly:
“You shan’t be queen! I will! I will!” they all yelled together and began to thump on the walls and make a frightful din.
The head-nurse came running up at once and opened the doors:
“What are your Royal Highnesses’ commands?” she asked and curtseyed and scraped with her legs.
“More honey!” they all cried together. “But me first, me first! I’m going to be queen!”
“This minute, this minute, your Royal Highnesses!” she replied and ran off as fast as her six old legs could carry her.
Soon after, she came back with several other bees. They dragged a quantity of honey with them, which they put down the throats of the angry little princesses, till gradually they grew quiet and all ten of them went to sleep.
But the little grub lay awake and thought over what had happened. She was yearning for honey and shook the door:
“Give me some honey! I can stand this no longer; I’m quite as good as the others.”
The old bee told her to be silent:
“Keep still, you little squaller! Here comes the queen.”
And the queen-bee came as she spoke:
“Go away,” she said to the bees. “I wish to be alone.”
She stood long, silently, outside the princesses’ rooms.
“You’re lying in there now and sleeping,” she said at last. “Eat and sleep, that’s what you do, from morn till night, and, every day that passes, you grow stronger and fatter. In a few days, you will be full-grown and you will creep out of the cells. Then my time is over. I know it well! I have heard the bees saying among themselves that they want a younger and prettier queen; and then they will drive me away in disgrace. But that I will not submit to. To-morrow, I shall kill them all, so that I can go on reigning till I die.”
Then she went away, but the little grub had heard all that she said.
“Goodness gracious!” she thought. “After all, it’s really a pity for the little princesses. They certainly give themselves airs and they have been nasty to me; but it would be sad, for all that, if the wicked queen killed them. I think I shall tell the old grumbler in the passage.”
Then she began to tap at the door again; and the old head-nurse came running up; but this time she was really angry:
“Now, you had better mind yourself, my good grub!” she said. “You’re the youngest of them all and the noisiest. Next time, I’ll report you to the queen.”
“Ah, but first listen to me,” said the grub; and then she betrayed the queen’s wicked plan.
“Heavens above! Is that true?” cried the old bee and struck her wings together with horror.
And, without listening to any more, she hurried away to tell the other bees.
“I do think I deserve a little honey for my goodwill,” said the little grub. “But now I can go to sleep with an easy conscience.”
The next morning, the queen, when she thought that all the bees were in bed, came to put the princesses to death. The grub could hear her talking aloud to herself; but was very frightened of the wicked queen and hardly dared move.
“If only she doesn’t kill the princesses,” she thought and crept closer to the door to hear what was happening.
The queen-bee looked carefully round in every direction and opened the first of the doors. But, as she did so, the bees swarmed up from every side, seized her by the legs and wings and dragged her away.
“What does this mean?” she screamed. “Are you rising in rebellion?”
“No, your Majesty,” replied the bees, respectfully, “but we know that you are thinking of killing the princesses; and that you cannot possibly be permitted to do. How should we manage in that case in the autumn, when your Majesty dies?”
“Unhand me!” screamed the queen and tried to tear herself free. “I am still queen and have the right to do what I please. How do you know that I shall die in the autumn?”
But the bees held fast and dragged her out of the hive. There they let her go; but she shook her wings with rage and said:
“You are disloyal subjects, who are not worth reigning over. I will not stay here another hour, but will go away and build a new hive. Are there any of you that will follow me?”
Some of the old bees who had been grubs with the queen declared that they would go with her, and soon after they flew away.
“Now we have no queen,” said the others. “We shall have to take good care of the princesses.”
And so they stuffed them with honey from morning till night and the princesses grew and thrived and squabbled and made more and more noise day after day.
And no one gave a thought to the little grub.