Nuova; or, The New Bee

by Marion Ames Taggart

  CHAPTER X

  _Nuova in the Beautiful Garden_

  When Nuova had recovered enough to face squarely the situation in herlife and in the life of the hive, she found herself very weak and verysad. Above all, she found the thought of going again into the dark hiveto work extremely repugnant to her. And almost the first thing she saidto Saggia, who had remained faithfully by her, supporting and caring forher, was that she would not go back into the hive to nurse or make waxor do anything else that meant staying inside.

  Saggia comforted her by saying that she would not have to work inside.The kindly old bee whispered to her that there was always so muchconfusion and such change in the hive arrangements whenever a newPrincess was born, and either she or the old Queen went out with many ofthe workers, that she could easily change her kind of work now withoutany notice being taken of it. And to confirm this Saggia pointed toseveral of the nurses, among them Uno, Due, and Tre, making one afteranother the little trial flights that Saggia had told Nuova to makepreparatory to going into the garden out of sight of the hive. Thesenurses were plainly intending to become foragers. Even as Saggia andNuova watched them, one after another flew out higher and farther anddisappeared into the garden.

  It was a beautiful garden on the edge of which the hive was set. Theowner of the garden was a great lover and student of flowers. He likedbees and beetles and birds, too; all kinds of live things, plant oranimal. And no one was ever allowed to kill any creature, little or big,in his garden, so it was full to overflowing with life and animation.Birds made their nests in it; squirrels barked in the trees; even molesand gophers made their underground runways unmolested. There were open,sunny grass-plots for playing, and close little copses and coverts forhiding, and great trees for climbing to see out into the still widerworld beyond the garden walls. But the garden itself was world enoughfor most of the creatures that lived in it. There were flowers enoughfor the bees; seeds and worms enough for the birds; nuts enough for thesquirrels. And if some of the happy family in the garden had to live byeating some of the others, still that was the way of life, and the onlything was to hope and try to make sure that the end would not come toosoon.

  In the Garden]

  Nuova already loved the garden, although so far she had not been in it;at least not been any more in it than standing on the entrance platformof the hive and looking into it from this vantage-ground. But now shewas really to go out into it, and sad and tired though she was, she felta little thrill of happiness as she thought of what she might see overthere beyond the near-by bushes, out there among the brilliant flowersand the lush grasses. She turned to Saggia gratefully.

  "Good-bye, dear Saggia," she said gently. "I am going to go into thegarden now. I will make the little flights first as you told me, so asto be able to find my way back to the hive--but, I don't know, Saggia, Idon't feel like ever coming back to the hive." Her eyes filled withtears. "He--he will never come back. He will win, and he will--willdie." She shuddered and nearly collapsed again.

  Saggia could say nothing. She believed, too, that Hero would win in theGreat Courting Chase. And if he won, he would die. It was really, shethought with some anger, a very stupid sort of arrangement; very unfairto the King; to be crowned because he was the finest, strongest, andswiftest drone in the hive, or in any of the other near-by hives whosedrones also joined in any Courting Chase they noticed going on, only todie at once. It was simply not only stupid; it was brutal.

  She did not like to think of Nuova's going off alone into the garden sosoon. And she could not put out of her mind the uneasy feeling thatNuova would never come back to the hive at all; not even as a foragerwho might go out and in as she pleased. Nuova had too plainly shown thather interest in living was gone, and her surrender to her impulses ofthe moment was likely at any time to be complete even though it mightlead to death itself. Saggia decided that she and Beffa were needed inthe garden. As Nuova left her to go to the edge of the platform for herfirst flights, Saggia scurried off in search of Beffa.

  * * * * *

  A number of bees were busy at a little group of flowers in the gardenwhen one of them, Uno, who had just turned around facing the generaldirection of the hive, suddenly uttered an exclamation.

  "Well, of all things!" she said. "Beffa in the garden!" The other beesturned and stared.

  "And Saggia!" exclaimed one of them. "Beffa and Saggia! Beffa in thegarden! What can he do here?"

  Beffa, hearing them, released himself from Saggia's support, and beganto make weak little hoppings and to sing. Poor Beffa; he was sadlytired, for because of his deformed wings he had had to walk all the wayfrom the hive. And Saggia was tired, too, because she had walked withhim, and not only that, but had helped him over some of the rougherplaces.

  Beffa sang:

  "Beffa in the garden; The prisoner in the sun; No Queen in the palace; No jesting to be done."

  He stopped to rest, and Saggia went slowly to a flower, where she busiedherself putting a little pollen into her pollen baskets.

  Due turned to Beffa. "Hi, Beffa, you can sing and dance for us while wegather pollen and honey. And you can watch for Bee-Bird to see that hedoesn't surprise us. Oh, you can be useful. Hop, hop, hop-la!" And shemade a little hop or two, in mimicry of Beffa.

  Tre had been looking sharply at Saggia. "And Saggia doesn't seem to bedoing much," she said, with asperity. "Foraging again, is she? That israther a dangerous business for such an old bee, isn't it?" she saidmalevolently. "The two-legged man giant that owns this garden likes thetwo-legged bird giants. He is a brute! He protects the birds! And theyeat the insects! He might protect us, rather. Brute!"

  "Brute!" cried the other bees. "Protect the horrid birds, indeed! Stinghim if you see him."

  Just then a big blue-bottle fly that had been buzzing about the flowersventured too near a dark corner lower down in the bush, and was lungedat by a big black spider, which barely missed it. The blue-bottledashed excitedly away with a tremendous buzzing, and all the bees jumpedabout nervously a little.

  Beffa began to sing without rising from the ground, just moving his feetas if dancing:

  "Bee-birds in the tree-tops, Spiders in the grass; Death rides down the sunbeam, Death leaps as you pass."

  "Ugh!" said Uno. "Can't you sing something more cheerful? Be funny,can't you?"

  Beffa got up and hopped about a little. Then he sang:

  "Out among the flower-cups, Dancing in the sun; Now a drink of nectar, Then another one. Brushing up the pollen, Hurry 'gainst the gloam, Pail and basket over-full, Off to hive and home!"

  All the bees skipped and danced and sang after him:

  "Pail and baskets over-full, Off to hive and home!"

  After singing this refrain several times and dancing happily about a fewmoments, the bees set at their work again industriously. It was sobeautiful and so bright and so warm in the garden that one could nothelp being happy in it.

  And yet just then Nuova stepped out from behind a flowering bush lookingvery weary and very sad. Saggia, who had been glancing around for herall the time, slipped quickly and quietly over to her without attractingthe attention of any of the bees, and before any other one had seen her.

  Saggia led Nuova around to the side of the bush where they would be outof sight of the other bees, and then spoke to her in a low tone.

  "Are you all right, Nuova?" she asked anxiously.

  Nuova smiled wearily and sadly. "Of course, I am all right," she saidgently; "who would not be out here in this wonderful world, this goldensunshine, this fragrant air? It's a place to be all right in all thetime. I am going to stay here."

  "Stay here? What do you mean?" asked Saggia.

  "Simply that, dear Saggia," she replied gently, smiling; "stay righthere in the warm sun, near the beautiful flowers. Do you think I amgoing back into the dark hive to die like that poor forager and bedragged off and tossed out like a piece of dirty wax?" She shudd
ered."No, no; I am going to die out here, and lie in the soft grass underthat heliotrope there."

  Saggia spoke anxiously but sternly. "Die? Die? Why do you talk of dying?Have you a right to die yet? Have you done all you should do for thehive? Are you going to shirk your duty? Anyway"--and her voice grew morekindly--"do you really want to die? Don't you want to do first all thethings a bee can do, to nurse--"

  "I have nursed," Nuova interrupted.

  "And make wax--" Saggia went on.

  "I have made wax," Nuova broke in.

  Saggia persisted, "And build cells--"

  "I have built cells," interrupted Nuova again.

  "And gather honey--" Saggia continued.

  Nuova touched a near-by flower. "I am gathering honey," she said.

  Saggia hesitated a moment, then began again. "And--and--" shestammered; then exclaimed suddenly and triumphantly--"and clean floors!"

  Nuova smiled at Saggia's anticlimax. "No, I haven't scrubbed the flooryet. I suppose I ought to enjoy that a little before I die. But you seeI am not really old enough to have had time for _everything_."

  "That's it," broke in Saggia warmly. "You are not old enough yet. It isnonsense to talk of dying so young. You must live a long time yet. Lookat me! Think how old I am!"

  Nuova smiled again, but grew earnest as she spoke. "It is not how longyou live, Saggia; it is how much you live. I have not done everything,but I have done most things. You, you dear wise, old, sensible bee, youhave done the things calmly one after another as it came time for you todo them. But I have tried everything that was interesting and for onlyas long as it was. You have lived a long and useful life with much init. I have lived a short and useless one; but also with much in it. Youhave lived mostly for others, and have been mostly happy. I have livedmostly for myself, and been mostly unhappy. But that is the way I am,Saggia. That is my way of living and really I suppose, my way of beinghappy; happily unhappy. And, Saggia"--and Nuova bent close over to her,as if to tell her a secret--"you know, don't you, that if I have missedcleaning floors, I have done something else in place of it; somethingyou haven't done. I have loved! And that is the happiest unhappiness Ihave had."

  Saggia was truly shocked. "Nuova," she exclaimed, "haven't I told youbefore not to say such things! You have _not_ loved," she added, firmly,"because you _cannot_ love. Poor little Nuova, you have much to learnyet about bee life."

  "There is much about it I don't want to learn," muttered Nuova.

  "There is much you must learn," replied Saggia sternly, but kindly. "Andsome of it you must learn now. When I say you cannot love, I meanexactly that; not that you ought not or must not, because other bees donot, but simply that you cannot. Bee loving is not just liking andsighing and laughing and dancing and crying, and being always happy andunhappy at once, but it is becoming the mother of babies, many babies,and that only Princesses can become. And when they are the mothers ofbabies, they are Queens. In bee land to be a mother is to be a Queen,and to be a Queen is only to be a mother."

  Nuova was silent. She felt compelled to believe Saggia, who surely knewabout the life of bees if any one did, and who had always spokentruthfully to her. And yet she had a feeling within her that seemed someway to contradict Saggia's knowledge.

  "Well, then, Saggia," she said slowly, "I haven't loved, but I havewished to love." And she added in a whisper, "I _want_ to love!"

  "You cannot love," repeated Saggia firmly. "Only Princesses can love.You should not think of it any more."

  Nuova looked up into the sky. And when she spoke it was as if she werespeaking in a dream. "I want to love and I cannot love! Only a Princesscan love. And I am not a Princess. What can I do? Clean floors?" Sheturned to Saggia and smiled sadly. "No, I cannot clean floors, either,"she said softly. "I am an unfortunate sort of bee, Saggia, a worthlesssort. A new bee, but not new enough to love, and too new to cleanfloors. Just a bee to lie under the heliotrope bush."

  Just then Beffa, who had come hopping and gently humming up to themunperceived by either, and who had overheard Nuova's last words, beganto sing:

  "A heliotrope or a rose-bush, A pale-blue flower or pink, But a dead bee sees no colors Nor smells sweet smells, I think. An old world for old bees, A new world for the new, And, ah, who knows the real truth? The untrue may be true."

  Nuova was delighted, in her sadness, to see Beffa again. "Beffa, youdear, funny Beffa!" she cried. "But how did you get out here in thegarden?"

  "He couldn't come, And so he came. Can or cannot, All's a name,"

  sang Beffa in reply, hopping about more vigorously than ever.

  As Beffa finished, Saggia saw some of the other bees looking scowlinglytoward them. She touched Nuova with an antenna.

  "Nuova," she said in a low voice, "we must get to work. The other beesare noticing us. We are idling. We must go to work. Beffa can sit herein the sunshine and watch us." She moved off toward a flower.

  Nuova looked after her a moment, and then she turned to Beffa.

  "Good old Saggia," she said. "She is an example of industry, isn't she?But I don't like her to work just because others are noticing us. Thatmakes me want _not_ to work." She stood loitering by him.

  Beffa deliberately stretched himself, with a yawn, and settling downcomfortably near a dandelion, he hummed, as if half-asleep already:

  "Some work because others talk; Some talk because others work; The wisest bee keeps wisest way, He--goes--to--sleep!"

  And as he finished he closed his eyes.

  Beffa settled down comfortably]

  Nuova saw through Beffa's transparent means of sending her off towork, and was as much amused as vexed. "Oh," she said, "I much preferworking to talking with bees whose wisdom might put me to sleep, too.Good-bye." She made a mocking curtsy and went off slowly to a smallgroup of flowers which was hidden by a large bush from the rest of thebees.

  As soon as she had started, Beffa opened one eye to spy on her, and asshe disappeared behind the bush he slowly straightened up, very muchawake and evidently strongly possessed by some idea. He let his eyesroam over all of the garden he could see, and he even scanned the air inall directions. Apparently not finding what he sought, he remainedquiet, but alert, on the flat dandelion leaf. The bees at the flowersworked industriously. The garden was fragrant and quiet in the sun.