“Please, sisters, I am so sleepy!” said the little bee.
“Too late! Too late!” said they.
“Please, sisters, I am cold!” said the little bee.
“Sorry! You can’t go in!” said they.
“Please, sisters, for one last time! I shall die out here!”
“You won’t die, lazy bee! One night will teach you the value of a warm bed earned by honest labor! Away from here!”
And they pushed her off the doorstep again.
By this time it was raining hard. The little bee felt her wings and fur getting wetter and wetter; and she was so cold and sleepy she did not know what to do. She crawled along as fast as she could over the ground, hoping to come to some place where it was dry and not so cold. At last she came to a tree and began to walk up the trunk. Suddenly, just as she had come to the crotch of two branches, she fell! She fell a long, long distance and landed finally on something soft. There was no wind and no rain blowing. On coming to her wits the little bee understood that she had fallen down through a hole inside a hollow tree.
And now the little bee had the fright of her life. Coiled up near her there was a snake, a green snake with a brick-colored back. That hollow tree was the snake’s house; and the snake lay there looking at her with eyes that shone even in that darkness. Now, snakes eat bees, and like them. So when this little bee found herself so close to a fearful enemy of her kind, she just closed her eyes and murmured to herself:
“This is the last of me! Oh, how I wish I had worked!”