The little red workers surrounded their princess. They began cutting off her wings! It was a rule of the kingdom that a princess might fly only once. She did not know it, of course.
Some princesses were satisfied with trying their wings just once and then took them off themselves, but she was not that kind of princess. She wanted wings all the time!
She struggled, and tried to bite her kind little red subjects who really knew what was best for her. They did not pay any attention to her, though. They did not hurt her very much, but they did not stop until every scrap of her gossamer wings was gone.
"Now look at me! Just see what you have done to your princess!" she tried to say.
"Yes, just look! See what has happened to you!" the others tried to reply, hopping merrily around her.
It was true. Something wonderful had happened to the little red princess. She had changed into a little red queen!
So she did not mind in the least losing her wings. In fact, she was rather glad. She went home to the castle and went right to work ordering her servants about, and keeping house, and taking care of her royal family and all the nurses. She very seldom has time to look out of her castle window, so you may never see her. Her kingdom lies very near you, though, for the little red queen is the real, true queen of the ant hill!
HOW THE FLOWERS CAME
Ever so many years ago the world was as bare and gray as the roads. The Earth King grew very tired of it, and covered the ground with a carpet of green. We call it grass. For years and years there was nothing but green, until the Earth King grew as tired of the green as he had been of the gray. He decided that he must have more colors. So one day he took his royal retinue and journeyed to a hillside where he knew there grew the finest grasses in all the kingdom. At the blast of the King's bugler the grasses assembled, and the King addressed them in simple words.