Chapter II: Part 2

No one knows what she looks like, for no one has ever seen her. But all long for her and thank her and bless her. She goes through the wood and touches the flowers and the trees and they bud at once. She goes through the stables and unfastens the animals and lets them out into the field. She goes straight into men’s hearts and makes them glad. She makes it difficult for the best-behaved boy to sit still on his bench at school and occasions a terrible lot of mistakes in the exercise-books.

But she does not do this all at once. She attends to her business night after night and comes first to those who long for her most.

So it happened that, on the very night when she arrived, she went straight off to the anemones, who stood in their green wraps and could no longer curb their impatience.

And one, two, three! There they stood in newly-ironed white frocks and looked so fresh and pretty that the starlings sang their finest songs for sheer joy at the sight of them.

“Oh, how lovely it is here!” said the anemones. “How warm the sun is! And how the birds sing! It is a thousand times better than last year.”

But they say this every year, so it doesn’t count.

Now there were many others who went quite off their heads when they saw that the anemones were out. There was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays then and there and then there was the beech, who was most offended.

“Aren’t you coming to me soon, Dame Spring?” he said. “I am a much more important person than those silly anemones and really I can no longer control my buds.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming!” replied Dame Spring. “But you must give me a little time.”

She went on through the wood. And, at every step, more anemones appeared. They stood in thick bevies round the roots of the beech and bashfully bowed their round heads to the ground.

“Look up freely,” said Dame Spring, “and rejoice in heaven’s bright sun. Your lives are but short, so you must enjoy them while they last.”

The anemones did as she told them. They stretched themselves and spread their white petals to every side and drank as much sunshine as they could. They knocked their heads against one another and wound their stalks together and laughed and were constantly happy.

“Now I can wait no longer,” said the beech and came into leaf.

Leaf after leaf crept out of its green covering and spread out and fluttered in the wind. The whole green crown arched itself like a mighty roof above the ground.

“Good heavens, is it evening so soon?” asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.

“No, it is _death_,” said Dame Spring. “Now _you’re_ finished. It’s the same with you as with the best in this world. All must bud, blossom and die.”

“Die?” cried some of the small anemones. “Must we die yet?”

And some of the large anemones turned quite red in the face with anger and pride:

“We know all about it!” they said. “It’s the beech that’s killing us. He steals the sunshine for his own leaves and grudges us a single ray. He is a nasty, wicked thing.”

They stood and scolded and wept for some days. Then Dame Spring came for the last time through the wood. She had still the oaks and some other querulous old fellows to visit:

“Lie down nicely to sleep now in the ground,” she said to the anemones. “It is no use kicking against the pricks. Next year, I will come again and wake you to new life.”

And some of the anemones did as she told them. But others continued to stick their heads in the air and grew up so ugly and lanky that they were horrid to look at.

“Fie, for shame!” they cried to the beech-leaves. “It’s you that are killing us.”

But the beech shook his long boughs, so that the brown husks fell to the ground.

“Wait till the autumn, you little blockheads,” he said and laughed. “Then you’ll just see.”

The anemones could not understand what he meant. But, when they had stretched themselves as far as they could, they cracked in two and withered.

3

The summer was past and the farmer had carted his corn home from the field.

The wood was still green, but darker; and, in many places, yellow and red leaves appeared among the green ones. The sun was tired of his warm work during the summer and went early to bed.

At night, the winter stole through the trees to see if his time would soon come. When he found a flower, he kissed her politely and said:

“Well, well, are you there still? I am glad to see you. Stay where you are. I am a harmless old man and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

But the flower shuddered with his kiss and the bright dew-drops that hung from her petals froze to ice at the same moment.

The winter went oftener and oftener through the wood. He breathed upon the leaves, so that they turned yellow, or upon the ground, so that it grew hard.

Even the anemones, who lay down below in the earth and waited for Dame Spring to come again as she had promised, could feel his breath and shuddered right down to their roots.

“Oh dear, how cold it is!” they said to one another. “How ever shall we last through the winter? We are sure to die before it is over.”

“Now _my_ time has come,” said the winter. “Now I need no longer steal round like a thief in the night. From to-morrow I shall look everybody straight in the face and bite his nose and make his eyes run with tears.”

At night the storm broke loose.

“Let me see you make a clean sweep of things,” said the winter.

And the storm obeyed his orders. He tore howling through the wood and shook the branches so that they creaked and broke. Any that were at all decayed fell down and those that held on had to twist and turn to every side.

“Away with all that finery!” howled the storm and tore off the leaves. “This is no time to deck one’s self out. Soon there will be snow on the branches: that’s another story.”

All the leaves fell terrified to the ground, but the storm did not let them be in peace. He took them by the waist and waltzed with them over the field, high up in the air and into the wood again, swept them together into great heaps and scattered them once more to every side, just as the fit seized him.

Not until the morning did the storm grow weary and go down.

“Now you can have peace for _this_ time,” he said. “I am going down till we have our spring-cleaning. Then we can have another dance, if there are any of you left by that time.”

And then the leaves went to rest and lay like a thick carpet over the whole earth.

The anemones felt that it had grown delightfully warm.

“I wonder if Dame Spring can have come yet?” they asked one another.

“I haven’t got my buds ready!” cried one of them.

“No more have I! No more have I!” exclaimed the others in chorus.

But one of them took courage and just peeped out above the ground.

“Good-morning!” cried the withered beech-leaves. “It’s rather too early, little missie: if only you don’t come to any harm!”

“Isn’t that Dame Spring?” asked the anemone.

“Not just yet,” replied the beech-leaves. “It’s we, the green leaves you were so angry with in the summer. Now we have lost our green color and have not much left to make a show of. We have enjoyed our youth and danced, I may tell you. And now we are lying here and protecting all the little flowers in the ground against the winter.”

“And meanwhile I am standing and freezing with my bare branches,” said the beech, crossly.

The anemones talked about it down in the earth and thought it very nice.

“Those dear beech-leaves!” they said.

“Mind you remember it next summer, when I come into leaf,” said the beech.

“We will, we will!” whispered the anemones.

For that sort of thing is promised; but the promise is never kept.

THE QUEEN BEE

THE QUEEN BEE

1

The farmer opened his bee-hive.

“Out with you!” he said. “The sun is shining; the flowers are blossoming everywhere and are a sheer joy to behold. Let me see you industrious now and gather me a good lot of honey which I can sell to the shopkeeper in the autumn. Many mickles make a muckle; and you know that things are looking bad with agriculture.”

“What is agriculture to us?” said the bees.

But they flew out nevertheless, for they had been in the hive all winter and were longing for a breath of fresh air. Buzzing and humming, they stretched their legs and tried their wings. They swarmed forth everywhere, crawled up and down the hive, flew off to the flowers and shrubs and walked about on the ground.

There were many hundred bees.

The queen came last. She was bigger than the others and it was she that reigned in the hive.

“Stop that nonsense now, children,” she said, “and begin to do something. A decent bee does not idle, but turns to, in a capable way, and makes good use of her time.”

Then she divided them into companies and set them to work.

“You, there, fly out and see if there is any honey in the flowers. The second company can gather pollen; and, when you come home, deliver it all nicely to the old bees indoors.”

They flew away. But all the young ones were still left. They formed the last company, for they had never been out before.

“What are _we_ to do?” they asked.

“You? You’ve got to _sweat_!” said the queen. “One, two, three and to work!”

And they sweated as best they knew how and the loveliest yellow wax burst out of their bodies.

“That’s right,” said the queen. “Now we will begin to build.”

The old bees took the wax and started building a number of small hexagonal cells, all alike and close together. All the time that they were building, the others came flying up with pollen and honey, which they laid at the queen’s feet.

“Now we’ll knead the dough!” said she. “But first pour a little honey in; then it will taste better.”

They kneaded and kneaded and made nice little loaves of bee-bread, which they carried to the cells.

“Now we’ll go on building!” commanded the queen-bee. And they sweated wax and built away with a vengeance.

“I may as well begin my own work,” said the queen and heaved a deep sigh, for this was the hardest of all.

She sat down in the middle of the hive and began to lay eggs. She laid great heaps and the bees ran up, took the little eggs in their mouths and carried them into the new cells. Every egg got its own little room; and, when they were all disposed of, the queen ordered the bees to put doors to the cells and to shut them tight.

“Good!” she said, when they had finished. “Now you can build me ten big, handsome rooms at the outer edge of the hive.”

The bees did so in a trice and then the queen laid ten beautiful eggs, one in each of the big rooms, and put a door before them.

Every day, the bees flew out and in and gathered great heaps of honey and pollen; but, in the evening, when their work was done, they set the doors a little ajar and peeped in at the eggs.

“Take care!” said the queen, one day. “Now they’re coming!”

And suddenly all the eggs burst and in each cell lay a nice little baby.

“What queer creatures!” said the young bees. “Why, they have no eyes; and where are their legs and wings?”

“Those are grubs,” said the queen, “and that’s what you young green-horns yourselves once looked like. You have to be a grub before you can become a proper bee. Hurry now and give them something to eat.”

The bees hastened to feed the little young ones; but they did not all fare equally well. The ten that lay in the large rooms got as much to eat as ever they wanted and a big helping of honey was carried in to them every day.

“Those are princesses,” said the queen. “Therefore, you must treat them well. The others you can stint in their food; they are only work-people and must accustom themselves to take things as they come.”

And the poor little creatures got a small piece of bee-bread every morning and nothing more; they had to be content with that, even though they were ever so hungry.

2

In one of the small hexagonal cells close to the princesses’ rooms lay a tiny little grub. She was the youngest of them all and had but quite lately come out of the egg. She could not see, but she could distinctly hear the grown-up bees talking outside; and meanwhile she lay quite still and just thought her own thoughts.

“I could do with a little more to eat,” she said and tapped at her door.

“You’ve got enough for today,” replied the old bee who crawled up and down outside in the passage and had been appointed head-nurse to the baby bees.

“Ah, but I’m hungry!” cried the little grub. “And then I want to have a princess’s room; I feel so cramped in here.”

“Oh, just listen to her!” said the old bee, sarcastically. “One would think she was a dainty little princess by the pretensions she puts forward! You were born to toil and drudge, my little friend. A common working-bee, that’s what you are; and you’ll never be anything else in all your days.”

“Ah, but I want to be a queen!” said the grub and thumped on the door.

The old bee, of course, made no reply to such silly trash, but went on to the others. Everywhere they were crying for more food; and the little grub could hear it all.

“It’s really hard,” she thought, “that we should be so hungry.”

And then she tapped on the wall and called to the princess on the other side:

“Give me a little of your honey! Let me come in to you in your room. I am lying here and starving and I am quite as good as you.”

“Ah, you just wait till I’m queen-regnant!” said the princess. “Be sure I shan’t forget your impudence.”

But she had hardly said this before the other princesses began to bawl most terribly:

“You shan’t be queen! _I_ will! _I_ will!” they all yelled together and began to thump on the walls and make a frightful din.

The head-nurse came running up at once and opened the doors:

“What are your Royal Highnesses’ commands?” she asked and curtseyed and scraped with her legs.

“More honey!” they all cried together. “But me first, me first! I’m going to be queen!”

“This minute, this minute, your Royal Highnesses!” she replied and ran off as fast as her six old legs could carry her.

Soon after, she came back with several other bees. They dragged a quantity of honey with them, which they put down the throats of the angry little princesses, till gradually they grew quiet and all ten of them went to sleep.

But the little grub lay awake and thought over what had happened. She was yearning for honey and shook the door:

“Give me some honey! I can stand this no longer; I’m quite as good as the others.”

The old bee told her to be silent:

“Keep still, you little squaller! Here comes the queen.”

And the queen-bee came as she spoke:

“Go away,” she said to the bees. “I wish to be alone.”

She stood long, silently, outside the princesses’ rooms.

“You’re lying in there now and sleeping,” she said at last. “Eat and sleep, that’s what you do, from morn till night, and, every day that passes, you grow stronger and fatter. In a few days, you will be full-grown and you will creep out of the cells. Then my time is over. I know it well! I have heard the bees saying among themselves that they want a younger and prettier queen; and then they will drive me away in disgrace. But that I will not submit to. To-morrow, I shall kill them all, so that I can go on reigning till I die.”

Then she went away, but the little grub had heard all that she said.

“Goodness gracious!” she thought. “After all, it’s really a pity for the little princesses. They certainly give themselves airs and they have been nasty to me; but it would be sad, for all that, if the wicked queen killed them. I think I shall tell the old grumbler in the passage.”

Then she began to tap at the door again; and the old head-nurse came running up; but this time she was really angry:

“Now, you had better mind yourself, my good grub!” she said. “You’re the youngest of them all and the noisiest. Next time, I’ll report you to the queen.”

“Ah, but first listen to me,” said the grub; and then she betrayed the queen’s wicked plan.

“Heavens above! Is that true?” cried the old bee and struck her wings together with horror.

And, without listening to any more, she hurried away to tell the other bees.

“I do think I deserve a little honey for my goodwill,” said the little grub. “But now I can go to sleep with an easy conscience.”

The next morning, the queen, when she thought that all the bees were in bed, came to put the princesses to death. The grub could hear her talking aloud to herself; but was very frightened of the wicked queen and hardly dared move.

“If only she doesn’t kill the princesses,” she thought and crept closer to the door to hear what was happening.

The queen-bee looked carefully round in every direction and opened the first of the doors. But, as she did so, the bees swarmed up from every side, seized her by the legs and wings and dragged her away.

“What does this mean?” she screamed. “Are you rising in rebellion?”

“No, your Majesty,” replied the bees, respectfully, “but we know that you are thinking of killing the princesses; and that you cannot possibly be permitted to do. How should we manage in that case in the autumn, when your Majesty dies?”

“Unhand me!” screamed the queen and tried to tear herself free. “I am still queen and have the right to do what I please. How do you know that I shall die in the autumn?”

But the bees held fast and dragged her out of the hive. There they let her go; but she shook her wings with rage and said:

“You are disloyal subjects, who are not worth reigning over. I will not stay here another hour, but will go away and build a new hive. Are there any of you that will follow me?”

Some of the old bees who had been grubs with the queen declared that they would go with her, and soon after they flew away.

“Now we have no queen,” said the others. “We shall have to take good care of the princesses.”

And so they stuffed them with honey from morning till night and the princesses grew and thrived and squabbled and made more and more noise day after day.

And no one gave a thought to the little grub.

3

One morning, the doors of the princesses’ rooms flew open and they all ten came out as beautiful full-grown queen-bees; the other bees came running up and looked at them with admiration.

“Oh, how lovely they are!” they said. “It is not easy to say which of them is the prettiest.”

“I am!” cried one.

“You make a great mistake!” said the second and thrust at her with her sting.

“You flatter yourselves!” cried the third. “I should think I am no less beautiful than you.”

Soon they were all screaming together; and, a little later, they all began to fight. The bees wanted to part them, but the old head-nurse said:

“Just let them fight, then we shall see which is the strongest and we will elect her to be our queen. After all, we can’t have more than one.”

The bees then formed a ring and watched the combat. It was long and hard-fought. Wings and legs were bitten off and flew around in the air; and, after some time, eight of the princesses lay dead on the ground. The last two went on fighting for a long while. One had lost all her wings and the other had only four legs left.

“It will be a pitiful queen, whichever of them we get,” said one of the bees. “We had better have kept the old one.”

But she might as well have saved herself the observation, for at that very moment the princesses suddenly gave each other so violent a thrust with their stings that both of them fell stone-dead.

“Here’s a nice thing!” cried the bees and they all ran about in consternation. “Now we have no queen! What shall we do? What shall we do?”

They crept round the hive in utter bewilderment and despair. But the oldest and wisest of them sat in a corner and held counsel. They discussed at length what expedient they should resort to in this unfortunate case; but at last the head-nurse spoke and said:

“Now I will tell you how you can get out of the dilemma, if you will follow my advice. I remember that the same misfortune once happened long ago in this hive. I was a grub at the time and I lay in my cell and distinctly heard what was going on. All the princesses had killed one another and the old queen had gone away, just as now. But then the bees took one of us grubs and put her in one of the princesses’ cells. They fed her every day on the best and finest honey that the hive contained; and, when she was full-grown, she was a really good and beautiful queen. I remember the whole story clearly, for I thought at the time that they might just as well have taken me. But never mind that at present. I propose that we should behave in just the same way.”

The bees gladly cried that they agreed, and they ran straight off to fetch a grub.

“Stop a bit,” cried the head-nurse, “and take me with you. After all, I have managed to help you. Now, look here: it must be one of the youngest grubs, for she must have time to think of her new position. When you’ve been brought up to be a common worker, it’s not so easy to accustom yourself to wear a crown.”

The bees thought this sensible too, and the old bee continued:

“Just beside the princesses’ rooms lies a little grub. She is the youngest of them all. She must have learned a deal from hearing the princesses’ cultured conversation; and I have noticed that she is not without character. Moreover, it was she who had the honesty to tell me of the old queen’s wicked thoughts. Let us take her.”

They all went forthwith, in a solemn procession, to the narrow, hexagonal cell in which the little grub lay. The head-nurse knocked politely at the door, opened it carefully and told the grub what the bees had decided upon. At first she almost refused to believe her own ears; but, when they carried her carefully into one of the beautiful large rooms and brought her as much honey as she could eat, she saw that it was serious.

“So I am to be queen after all!” she said to the head-nurse. “You never thought that, you old grumbler!”

“I hope your Majesty will forget my rude remarks at the time when you lay in the hexagonal cell,” said the old bee and dropped a respectful curtsey.

“I forgive you!” replied the new-fledged princess. “Get me some more honey!”

Soon after, the grub was full-grown and stepped out of her room, looking as large and beautiful as the bees could possibly wish. And she did know how to command and no mistake!

“Away with you!” she said. “We want more honey for winter use and you others must sweat more wax. I mean to build a wing to the hive. The new princesses will live in it next year; it is much too unpleasant for them to be so near the common grubs.”

“What next!” cried the bees to one another. “One would really think that she had been queen from the time when she lay in the egg!”

“No,” said the head-nurse, “that she was not. But she has had _queenly thoughts_; and that is the great thing.”

THE CATERPILLAR

THE CATERPILLAR

1

The whole kitchen-garden was full of caterpillars and one of them was bigger than the others. Day after day, he crawled about on a head of cabbage just at the edge of the walk. He was stout and fat and so green that it hurt one’s eyes to look at him. He ate and ate, positively did nothing else but eat.

“You stupid beast!” said the gardener. “You and your brothers and sisters eat up half my cabbage. If there were not so many of you, I would kill you.”

“The stupid beast!” sang the nightingale who sat in the syringa-bush. “He does not care about flowers or music and singing. Nothing but eat, eat, eat!”

“The stupid beast!” piped the swallow who swept over the kitchen-garden on his long, pointed wings. “He has not the smallest taste for poetry: never thinks of sunshine and summer air. There is not the least go in him. Nothing but eat, eat, eat! And then, into the bargain, he is so full of loathsome poisonous hairs that one can’t eat him one’s self.”

“The stupid beast!” snapped the ant, who ran past with a grain of corn in her mouth. “Does he ever think of house and home? Of his children? Of food for the winter? Nothing but eat, eat, eat!”

“Goodness me!” said the caterpillar.

And he said no more for the time being, so overpowered was he with all this scolding. But, all the while that he was eating the green, juicy cabbage, he pondered on what he had heard and most on what the ant had said. And, when the ant next came by, the caterpillar had made it out:

“Hi, you ant!” he cried. “Stop a bit and explain to me what you said about the children. Don’t you know that I am a child myself? I only want time in order to grow big and pretty.”

The ant stood still and dropped the grain of corn she had in her mouth, so great was her amazement:

“Are _you_ a child?” she asked. “A nice child you are! Why, you’re a perfect elephant, fifty times as big as myself. And so you’re a child, are you? Lord knows what you’ll look like when you’re grown up!”

“I don’t know for certain,” said the caterpillar, with an air of mystery. “But I have a suspicion. If I could only tell you what I sometimes notice inside myself! I am quite certain that I shall be something great one day--if only you give me time to grow. I shall fly away over the garden on beautiful wings; I shall be a butterfly: just you wait and see! I know by my dreams that I am related to you others and that I am quite as good as you.”

“Bah!” said the ant and spat on the ground. “It is simply disgusting to listen to such balderdash. Dreams? Suspicions? No, there’s a thing that’s called the family and the ant-hill: that’s what _I_ stick to. Good-bye, you stupid caterpillar.”

Then she ran off, but stopped a little farther away and once more said:

“Bah!”

And the sun blazed and the caterpillar basked in its rays while he ate the green cabbage.

2

It was now past mid-day and the nightingale in the syringa-bush could not bear to sing in so great a heat. So he stopped and took an afternoon nap. The swallow flew up aloft to get a breath of fresh air, the ant carried her little white eggs up into the sun and the gardener sat under the big walnut-tree and had his dinner with his wife and children.

But the caterpillar went on eating indefatigably.

Suddenly a multitude of small black dots appeared in the air over the kitchen-garden. They danced up and down and up and down. At last, they hung low down, just above the caterpillar, and he could see that they were nice little animals, with fine, bright wings.

“Who are you? What do you want?” asked the caterpillar.

“We are mothers,” replied the little animals, “and we have come out to look for a place for our children.”

“Well, that’s right and proper enough,” said the caterpillar, who was thinking of what the ant had said. “But I don’t like you, for all that.”

“That’s very sad,” said the animalcules, “for we just happen to be so awfully fond of you.”

And, at that moment, a number of them settled on the caterpillar’s back.

“Oh! Oh!” he screamed. “Murder! Help! Police!”

The little animals flew up again, but remained hovering in the air above the caterpillar.

“But who are you?” he asked and writhed with pain. “What have I done to you that you should ill-treat me so?”

“Every one provides for himself and his,” replied the animalcules, “and we have now provided for our children. We are parasitic flies and our name is Ichneumon: it is not a pretty one, but it happens to be the best we have. For the rest, we are relations of the ants, if you happen to know them.”

“It’s a good enough family,” said the caterpillar and sighed. “But I don’t know why everybody should scold at me and sting me and scoff at me. What is this that you have done to me now?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the ichneumons. “Good-bye for the present and thank you.”

Then they soared up aloft and became little black dots again and, at last, disappeared altogether.

But the caterpillar heaved long and deep sighs and ate twice as much cabbage to console himself. Nevertheless, he could not keep from thinking of the uncomfortable visit he had had:

“I have a suspicion,” he said to himself. “An awkward suspicion. If only I could make something of it!”

3

But, when some time had passed, he began to make something of it.

He simply could not satisfy his appetite any longer. The more he ate, the hungrier he became. He munched one piece of cabbage-leaf after another and, nevertheless, he felt quite faint with hunger.

“What is the meaning of _this_ now?” he said, despondently.

“It’s we!” answered something inside him.

“Eh? What?” said the caterpillar and rolled round with terror. “Am I haunted inside, or have I gone mad?”

“It’s we, it’s the ichneumon-flies’ young,” came the sound again from deep down in his stomach.

The caterpillar’s head was in a whirl. But, when he had collected himself a little, he began to understand:

“So the ichneumons laid their eggs in my body!” he cried, in despair. “And have I now to feed all their voracious young?”

“That’s it!” said the young ones. “You’ve hit it to a T. Bestir yourself now, you stupid, lazy caterpillar, and eat till you burst, or we’ll eat you!”

So saying, they took a good nip at his flesh.

“Oh, oh!” yelled the caterpillar. “I will, I will, indeed I will.”

“Yes, but hurry up!” said the young ones. “We are so hungry, so hungry!”

And the caterpillar ate ever so much more than before, but it was not the slightest use. He could never eat enough and the ichneumon-flies’ young kept on crying for more. The ant and the swallow and the nightingale mocked at him every day and the gardener beat the cabbage with his rake, so angry was he at all this consumption.

But the caterpillar swallowed it all and reflected that there was not on earth a lot so distressing as his.

“Jeer away!” he thought. “You’re quick at that. If only you knew that I don’t get the food myself which I procure: the benefit of it all goes to the ichneumon-flies’ young.”

He ate and ate desperately. At last, he could bear it no longer. All day long, he noticed how the ichneumons were rummaging about inside him. He rolled round on the cabbage-leaf in despair and turned and twisted and screamed for help.

“Rather eat me up altogether while you’re about it!” he cried. “Rather let me die at once: I can’t endure this life!”

“Tut, tut!” said the young ones inside him and cackled with laughter. “It’s not so easy as that. You’ll be eaten right enough, when the time comes, never fear! But, for the present, all you have to do is to hold your tongue and eat.”

4

Every day, the young ones grew bigger and wanted more food. When they could no longer satisfy themselves with what the caterpillar ate, they began to devour two large lumps of fat which he had saved up in the happy days before the ichneumons came. They were meant to be used for wings and legs, once he had become a butterfly. And, when he noticed that they were gone, he shed bitter tears:

“Alas for my beautiful dreams!” he said. “Now I shall never be a butterfly, never flit in the sun all over the garden.”

“I told you all the time that that was nonsense about the butterfly,” said the ant, who passed at that moment.

“Listen,” said the caterpillar. “If you have a heart beating in your body, then help me, Ant.”

Then he told her of his misfortune. The swallow and the nightingale came and listened and the caterpillar implored them for advice and assistance.

“After all, I’m of your race,” he ended by saying. “Believe me, I feel it. If I get time and leisure, I shall turn into something pretty, a butterfly. I have felt that inside myself since the time when I was quite little.”

The swallow and the nightingale looked at each other and shook their heads. But the ant, who was the cleverest of the three, nodded thoughtfully and then said:

“What you say about the relationship may have something in it. To a certain extent. For we are all poor mortals, as the gardener says. But that bit about the butterfly is positively nothing but imagination. I am sorry for you, goodness knows I am, but I can’t help you. You must bear your lot with patience.”

“I _can’t_ bear it!” cried the caterpillar. “It is killing me. Think of the butterflies: are they not beautiful? Don’t you like looking at them? Help me, do you hear! If I die, a butterfly dies. Only think, if one day there were no butterflies!”

“Well,” said the ant, “as for that, the world would go on, even if you are right. There are caterpillars enough in the garden and, if you really _are_ butterflies’ children, there would be plenty left, even though a few did get lost. However, I have no time to speculate on this folly. If you wish to have my opinion in a nutshell, here it is, that your mother must have looked after you foolishly, for you to fall into the ichneumons’ power like this. And now I must go home and look after _my_ children. Good-bye and bless you!”

Then the ant went away. The nightingale flew up into the bush and sang in the warm evening so that all had to listen and admire him and the swallow soared high into the air and prophesied fine weather for the morrow.

But the caterpillar crouched humbly over his cabbage-leaf and ate.

5

“I think there are too many of us in here,” said one of the ichneumon-grubs the next morning. “I can’t breathe.”

“There’s a way out of that,” said one of the others. “Let’s bite a hole in the creature’s air-ducts; then we’ll get air enough. But see that he has one or two left, or we shall risk his going and suffocating before his time.”

It was no sooner said than done. But the caterpillar screamed louder than ever.

“Air! Air! I shall die of suffocation!”

“No, you won’t,” replied the young ones. “But you had better accustom yourself to be content with little. Hurry back to the cabbage.”

“Now it’s all up with me,” said the caterpillar, one morning.

“You may be right, this time,” replied the ichneumon-grubs.

That evening, they ate the last remnant of their host. Only the skin was left of the dead caterpillar. It lay dry and shrivelled up outside the grubs, who nestled in it as in a warm fur.

One fine day, they flew out. Pretty little animals they were, with light, bright wings, like their parents.

“Hurrah!” they cried. “Now it’s only a question of finding a caterpillar for our young. Each for himself and the devil take the hindmost: such is nature’s law. We are nature’s police: we see to it that things keep their balance. It would be a hideous world indeed, if it were full of caterpillars!”

“Or of ichneumon-flies!” piped the swallow and gulped down a mouthful of them as he spoke.

THE BEECH AND THE OAK

THE BEECH AND THE OAK

1

It was in the old days.

There were no towns with houses and streets and towering church-steeples. There were no schools. For there were not many boys and those there were learnt from their fathers to shoot with a bow and arrow, to hunt the deer in his hiding-place, to kill bears in order to make clothes of their hides and to get fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together. When they knew all this thoroughly, their education was completed.

Nor were there any railways, or tilled fields, or ships on the sea, or books, for there was nobody who would read them.

There was hardly anything but trees.

But then of trees there were plenty. They stood everywhere, from coast to coast, mirrored themselves in every river and sea and stretched their mighty branches up into the sky. They stooped out over the sea-shore, dipped their branches in the black water of the marshes and looked out haughtily over the land from the tall hills.

They all knew one another, for they belonged to one big family and they were proud of it.

“We are all oak-trees,” they said and drew themselves up. “We own the land and we govern it.”

And they were quite right, for there were only very few people at that time. Otherwise there was nothing but wild animals. Bears, wolves and foxes went hunting, while the deer grazed by the edge of the marsh. The wood-mouse sat outside her hole eating acorns and the beaver built his ingenious house on the river-bank.

2

Then, one day, the bear came trudging along and lay down at full length under a great oak-tree.

“Are you there again, you robber?” said the oak and shook a heap of withered leaves over him.

“You really ought not to be so wasteful with your leaves, old friend,” said the bear, licking his paws. “They are the only thing you have to keep off the sun with.”

“If you don’t like me, you can go away,” replied the oak, proudly. “I am lord of the land and, look where you may, you will find none but my brothers.”

“True enough,” growled the bear. “That’s just the tiresome part of it. I’ve been for a little trip abroad, you see, and have been a bit spoilt. That was in a country down south. I there took a nap under the beech-trees. Those are tall, slender trees, not crooked old fellows like you. And their tops are so close that the sunbeams can’t pierce through them at all. It was a real delight to sleep there of an afternoon, believe me.”

“Beech-trees?” asked the oak, curiously. “What are they?”

“You might wish that you were half as handsome as a beech-tree,” said the bear. “But now I’m not going to gossip with you any more. I’ve had to trot over a mile in front of a confounded hunter, who caught me on one of my hind-legs with an arrow. Now I want to sleep; and perhaps you will be so kind as to provide me with rest, since you can’t provide me with shade.”

The bear lay down and closed his eyes, but there was no sleep for him this time. For the other trees had heard what he had said and there came such a chattering and a jabbering and a rustling of leaves as had never been known in the forest.

“Heaven knows what sort of trees those are!” said the one. “Of course, it’s a story which the bear wants us to swallow,” said another.

“What can trees be like whose leaves are so close together that the sunbeams can’t pierce through them?” asked a little oak who had been listening to what the big ones were saying.

But next to him stood an old, gnarled tree, who slapped the little oak on the head with one of his lower branches.

“Hold your tongue,” he said, “and don’t talk till you’ve got something to say. And you others need not believe a word of the bear’s nonsense. I am much taller than you and I can see a long way over the forest. But as far away as I can see there is nothing but oak-trees.”

The little oak remained sheepish and silent and the other big trees whispered softly to one another, for they had a great respect for the old one.

But the bear got up and rubbed his eyes.

“Now you have disturbed my afternoon nap,” he growled, angrily, “and I shall have my revenge on you, never fear. When I come back, I shall bring some beech-seed with me and I’ll answer for it that you will all turn yellow with envy when you see how handsome the new trees are.”

Then he trotted away. But the oaks talked to one another for days at a time of the queer trees which he had told them of.

“If they come, we’ll do for them!” said the little oak-tree.

But the old oak gave him one on the head:

“If they come, you shall be civil to them, you puppy,” he said. “But they won’t come.”

3

Now this was where the old oak was wrong, for they did come.

In the autumn, the bear returned and lay down under the old oak.

“I am to give you the kind regards of the people down below there,” he said and picked some funny little things off his shaggy hide. “Just look what I’ve got for you.”

“What’s that?” asked the oak.

“That’s beech,” replied the bear. “Beech-seed, as I promised you.”

Then he trampled them into the earth and prepared to leave again:

“It’s a pity that I can’t stay to see how annoyed you will be,” he said, “but those confounded human beings have become so offensive. They killed my wife and one of my brothers the other day and I must look out for a place where I can dwell in peace. There is hardly a spot left for an honest bear to live in. Good-bye, you gnarled old oak-trees.”

When the bear had jogged off, the trees looked at one another seriously.

“Let us now see what happens,” said the old oak.

And thereupon they betook themselves to rest. The winter came and tore all their leaves from them. The snow lay high over all the land and every tree stood plunged in his own thoughts and dreamt of spring.

And, when the spring came, the grass was green and the birds began to sing where they last left off. The flowers swarmed up out of the ground and everything looked fresh and vigorous.

The oaks alone still stood with leafless branches:

“It is very distinguished to come last,” they said to one another. “The king of the forest does not arrive before the whole company is assembled.”

But at last they did arrive. All the leaves burst forth from the fat buds and the trees looked at one another and complimented one another on their good appearance. The little oak had grown a decent bit. This made him feel important and think that he now had the right to join in the conversation:

“There’s not much coming of the bear’s beech-trees,” he said, mockingly, but at the same time glanced up anxiously at the old oak who used to slap his head.

The old oak heard what he said and so did the others. But they said nothing. None of them had forgotten what the bear had said and every morning, when the sun shone, they peeped down secretly to see if the beeches had come. At bottom they were a little anxious, but they were too proud to talk about it.

And, one day, at last, the little sprouts shot up from the ground. The sun shone upon them and the rain fell over them, so that it was not long before they grew to a good height.

“I say, how pretty they are!” said the great oaks and twisted their crooked branches still more, so as to see them better.

“You are welcome among us,” said the old oak and gave them a gracious nod. “You shall be my foster-children and have just as good a time as my own.”

“Thank you,” said the little beeches and not a word more.

But the little oak did not like the strange trees:

“It’s awful, the way you’re shooting up,” he said, in a vexed tone. “You’re already half as tall as I am. May I beg you to remember that I am much older than you and of a good family besides?”

The beeches laughed with their tiny little green leaves, but said nothing.

“Shall I bend my branches a little to one side, so that the sun can shine on you better?” asked the old tree, politely.

“Much obliged,” replied the beeches. “We can grow quite nicely in the shade.”

4

And all that summer passed and another summer and still more. The beeches went on growing steadily and at last grew right over the little oak’s head.

“Keep your leaves to yourselves!” cried the oak. “You’re standing in my light; and that I can’t endure. I must have proper sunshine. Take your leaves away, else I shall die.”

The beeches only laughed and went on growing. At last, they met right above the little oak’s head and then he died.

“That was ill done!” roared the big oaks and shook their branches in anger.

But the old oak stood up for his foster-children.

“Serve him right!” he said. “That’s the reward of his bragging. I say it, although he is my own flesh and blood. But you must be careful now, you little beeches, for else I shall slap you on the head too.”

5

The years passed and the beeches kept on growing and gradually became slim young trees that reached right up among the old oak’s branches.

“You’re beginning to be rather intrusive for my taste,” said the old oak. “You had better try to grow a bit thicker and give up shooting into the air like that. Just look how your branches stick out. Bend them decently, as you see us do. How will you manage when a regular storm comes? Take it from me, the wind shakes the tree-tops finely! He has many a time come whistling through my old branches; and how do you think that you’ll come off, with that meagre display which you stick up in the air?”

“Every one grows in his own manner and we in ours,” replied the young beeches. “This is the way it’s done where we come from; and we dare say we are just as good as you.”

“That’s not a very polite remark to make to an old tree with moss on his branches,” said the oak. “I am beginning to regret that I was so good to you. If you have a scrap of honour in your composition, then have the kindness to move your leaves a little to one side. Last year, there were hardly any buds on my lower branches, all through your standing in my light.”

“We can’t quite see what that has to do with us,” replied the beeches. “Every one has enough to do to look after himself. If he is industrious and successful, then things go well with him. If not, he must be content to go to the wall. Such is the way of the world.”

And the oak’s lower branches died and he began to be terribly frightened.

“You’re nice fellows, you are,” he said, “the way you reward me for my hospitality! When you were little, I let you grow on my food and protected you against the storm. I let the sun shine on you whenever he wanted to and I treated you as if you were my own children. And now you choke me by way of thanks.”

“Fudge!” said the beeches.

Then they blossomed and put forth fruit and, when the fruit was ripe, the wind shook their branches and spread it all around.

“You are active people, like myself,” said the wind. “That’s why I like you and will gladly give you a hand.”

And the fox rolled at the foot of the beech and filled his coat with the prickly fruit and ran all over the country with it. The bear did the same and moreover laughed at the old oak while he lay and rested in the shadow of the beech. The wood-mouse was delighted with the new food which he got and thought that beech-nuts tasted much better than acorns.

New little beeches shot up round about and grew just as quickly as their parents and looked as green and happy as if they did not know what a bad conscience was.

But the old oak gazed out sadly over the forest. The light beech-leaves peeped forth on every hand and the oaks sighed and told one another their troubles.

“They are taking our power from us,” they said and shook themselves as well as they could for the beeches. “The land is no longer ours.”

One branch died after the other and the storm broke them off and flung them to the ground. The old oak had now only a few leaves left in his top.

“The end is at hand,” he said, gravely.

But there were many more people in the land now than before and they hastened to cut down the oaks while there were still some left:

“Oak makes better timber than beech,” they said.

“So at last we get a little appreciation,” said the old oak. “But we shall have to pay for it with our lives.”

Then he said to the beech-trees:

“What was I thinking of, when I helped you on in your youth? What an old fool I have been! We oak-trees used to be lords of the land and now, year after year, I have had to see my brothers all around succumb in the struggle against you. I myself am almost done for and not one of my acorns has shot up, thanks to your shadow. But, before I die, I should like to know what you call your behaviour.”

“That’s soon said, old friend!” replied the beeches. “We call it competition and it’s no discovery of ours. It’s that which rules the world.”

“I don’t know those foreign words of yours,” said the oak. “_I_ call it rank ingratitude.”

Then he died.

THE WEEDS

THE WEEDS

1

It was a fine and fruitful year.

Rain and sunshine came turn and turn about, in just the way that was best for the corn. No sooner did the farmer think that it was getting rather dry, than he could be quite sure that it would rain the next day. And, if he was of opinion that he had had rain enough, then the clouds parted at once, just as though it were the farmer that was in command.

The farmer, therefore, was in a good humour and did not complain, as otherwise he always did. Glad and rejoicing, he walked over the land with his two boys.

“It will be a splendid harvest this year,” he said. “I shall get my barns full and make lots of money. Then Jens and Ole shall have a new pair of trousers apiece and I will take them with me to market.”