“May she live upon eglantine all her life,” exclaimed Silverwing with enthusiasm, “and have her home quite overflowing with honey and pollen!”
“This is the strangest part of your adventure,” said Honey ball; “this is the very first time in my life that I ever heard of kindness shown to an insect by a human being.”
“I thought that bees were sometimes fed by them in winter,” suggested Silverwing.
“Fed with sugar and water!—fit food for a bee!” cried Honeyball, roused to indignation upon the only subject that stirred her up to anything like excitement. “And have you never heard how whole swarms have been barbarously murdered, smothered in the hive which they had filled with so much labour, that greedy man might feast upon their spoils!”
“If you talk of greediness, Honeyball,” drily observed Waxywill, “I should say, Keep your tongue in a sheath.”
“I am glad that it is not the custom for men to eat bees as well as their honey,” laughed Silverwing.
“Oh, they are barbarous to everything, whether they eat it or not,” exclaimed Waxywill, with an angry buzz. “Have I not seen a poor butterfly, basking in the sun, glittering in her vest of purple and gold—ah, Sipsyrup, in your very best day, you were no better than a blackbeetle compared to her!”
An hour before, Sipsyrup would have felt ready to sting Waxywill for such an insolent speech, but the pride of the poor bee was humbled; and when Waxywill observed her silence and noticed her drooping looks, she felt secretly ashamed of her provoking words. She continued: “Have I not seen the butterfly, I say, dancing through the air, as though life was all sunshine and joy!—I have seen a boy look on her—not to admire, not to feel pleasure in beholding her beauty, but eager to lay that beauty in the dust, and seize on his little victim. I have watched him creeping softly, his hat in his hand, as anxious about his prize, as if to destroy a poor insect’s happiness was the way to secure his own. Now the unconscious butterfly rose, high above the reach of her pursuer, then sank again to earth, to rest upon a flower, whose tints were less bright than its wings. Down came the hat—there was a shout from the boy—the butterfly was prisoner at last. If he had caught it to eat it, as the spider caught Sipsyrup, I could have forgiven him—for men as well as bees must have food, and I suspect that they do not live entirely upon honey; but it made me wish for a hundred stings when I saw the wretched insect lying on the ground, fluttering in the agonies of death. The boy had barbarously torn off its bright beautiful wings, and had not even the mercy to put it out of pain by setting his foot upon it.”
“It had never injured him,” murmured Silverwing.
“It had never injured any one—it desired nothing but to be allowed to spend its short life in peace.”