MR. THOMPSON AND THE BUMBLE-BEE.
BY ALLAN FORMAN.
"Buzz, buzz-z, buzz-z-z," scolded old Mr. Bumble-Bee, flying around Mr. Thompson's head. Mr. Thompson didn't understand him, however, and only brushed at him impatiently, and said, "Get out!" in a tone anything but sociable; but the old bee kept flying around just the same, and complained in his drowsy voice: "Buzz, buzz-z, buzz-z-z. I wish you would go away. I want to get into my house, and I don't want you to see me. My family are in there, and we are making bread to-day, and unless I get home with the flour, my wife will scold awfully. Buzz, buzz-z, buzz-z-z."
But in the mean time Mr. Thompson had fallen asleep, and the old bee sat down on the fence rail and watched him. "Hum, hum, hum," he murmured. "I guess that he has gone to sleep. I don't see what men want to stay awake for, anyway; they are not half so much trouble when they are asleep. And only listen how nicely he can buzz through his nose!—he really seems to be quite like a sensible bee."
Now Mr. Thompson says he did not go to sleep at all; he says that he only closed his eyes, and in a few minutes he could understand every word that the old bee said.
"He's a pleasant-looking man," buzzed the bee. "I wonder if he likes honey?"
Mr. Thompson answered through his nose that he was very fond of it.
"Sensible, too," said the bee, who thought (all bumble-bees do) that anybody who agreed with him must be sensible. Then, turning to Mr. Thompson, the bee murmured, in a more pleasant hum, "If you like honey, try some of this." As he said it he alit on Mr. Thompson's lips, and pressed some of the honey he had with him into his mouth.
Mr. Thompson began to grow smaller, and as he shrunk in size, his light alpaca duster became gauzy, and formed itself into wings. Just as he had begun to wonder how long it would take him to shrink into nothing, the bee said, "There, I guess that will do."