Ho! The Bumblebee Express!
How it buzzes through the air
Till before you even guess
Where you are, why, you are there!
Stopping at the hollyhocks
For a load of honey freight;
At the sweet pea and the phlox
Where the other shipments wait.
Then away, away it goes!
With a zip and zum and zoom
With a halt beside the rose
And a stop at Clover Bloom.
Hurry, Fred and Tom and Bess
Don't you want to take a ride
On the Bumblebee Express
To the orchard's other side?
Will it hold you? Goodness, yes
But you can not have a seat
In the Bumblebee Express
If you are not good and sweet.
Hardly had the last note of this Fairy summons died away, when there came a soft, whirring sound below them.
"Look!" cried Lulu. They peered over the edge of the room in the rock far down along the Golden Ladder; and there, approaching them rapidly, they saw a bright light. A faint click came along the Ladder, as one may sometimes hear the rails click when a railway train is far away. Rapidly this light grew more distinct, and almost at once, with a whizz and a whir about as loud as ordinarily may be heard across a room, but which in that place sounded very much louder, there drew up at the edge of the chamber a strange and wonderful little coach, such as perhaps no Twins in the world ever saw before.
It was made of a walnut shell for a body, although the shell was traced with lines of silver and gold. It had a canopy over the top, made of such gossamer as blows upon the air of evenings. Within it were two seats, each as large as a silver dime, and there was another seat or high box for the coachman. The coachman was a small blue grasshopper, who sat very erect and straight upon his seat and drove with wonderful skill, holding tight to the lines, which were made of single strands of silk. The most wonderful of all was the team which drew this little Fairy coach, for such at once they saw it was. Its horses were nothing in the world but great golden bumblebees, with black and yellow bodies, with fuzzy legs and large, bright, dark eyes, which shone so clearly that no other lamps were needed for the coach. Indeed, it had been their eyes which the Twins saw as they leaned over the edge; and it was their strange, steady buzzing which had made the noise they heard—a very busy and pleasant sound when bumblebees are going as fast as these had been. They panted a little as the coachman pulled them up and drove slowly into the little room in the rocky wall where the Twins were sitting. The latter looked at the Fairy coach with delight, for it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen in all their lives. At first they did not know whether there was any one about the coach but the driver, but now there stepped down a footman, about as large as a green house-fly and much resembling one. With a deep bow, he swung open the door in the side of the coach as though inviting the Twins to enter. As he did this, the driver tightened up his reins and the golden harness of the bumblebee horses jingled and jangled and tinkled as they began to toss their heads and champ at their bits, eager to start.
"Dear me," said Lulu, "isn't this the sweetest little coach in all the world? How fine it must be to be a Fairy and ride in such a coach as this!"