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Tale of Buster Bumblebee

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[Pg 32] <h2>VII A JUGFUL OF BUMBLEBEES</h2> When the workers—as well as Buster Bumblebee—heard the raking, scraping sound in the hall of their house they all stopped what they were doing and shrilled "An enemy!" And with one accord they rushed for the front door. They were terribly angry. Not wishing to miss anything that was going to happen, Buster joined the mob and went sailing out into the open meadow. And there, quite close to the door, stood the queer object that Buster had noticed together with Johnnie Green only a minute before. He wondered now what that[Pg 33] strange thing was; for Buster Bumblebee did not know a jug when he saw one. And neither did the workers, nor any other member of the Bumblebee family. "That's the enemy!" cried Buster suddenly, pointing to the jug. "It was talking out of its mouth right into Johnnie Green's ear when I came home." Sounding a dreadful battle cry, all the workers turned upon the jug and buzzed so near it that they couldn't help hearing the same roaring from inside it to which Johnnie Green had listened with so much pleasure. "Buster's almost right!" several of the workers shouted. "The enemy has hidden inside this thing. And we'll have to go in and sting him." At that the workers began to pop into the jug, which Johnnie Green had thoughtfully left uncorked. And Buster Bumblebee,[Pg 34] still eager to see everything, hastened to plunge inside the dim jug along with the rest. It was soon not a dim but a dark jug. For the moment the last angry Bumblebee had disappeared inside it Johnnie Green stole quickly up from behind a haycock and slipped the cork into the mouth of the jug. Johnnie's face wore a grin of joy. Perhaps he did not stop to realize that he was breaking up a happy home. "I've got 'em!" he shouted aloud. And then he shook the jug vigorously, listening with delight to the sound of the splashing water within. Soon he set the jug behind the sheltering haycock and sat down beside it to make further plans. It was Johnnie's intention then to drown everything on the farm that carried a sting—wasps, hornets, honey bees. He was not[Pg 35] quite sure about mosquitoes, for he thought they might be hard to capture in great numbers. Since he was intending to go swimming, he did not care to waste much more of the afternoon by staying in the meadow. So he proceeded to empty the jug. It certainly looked as if the Bumblebee family had met with ill fortune. Several dozen workers—and Buster, too—lay limp and water-soaked upon the ground, when Johnnie Green hurried away to the spring to get more water for his father and the hired man, before he went to the mill-pond. But it was not long before the half-drowned Buster and his companions began to stir slightly. Gradually the sun dried their wings and warmed their chilled bodies. And one by one they picked themselves up and scurried into their house. They never knew exactly what had happened.[Pg 36] But the workers agreed upon one point. They decided that somehow the whole trouble had been Buster's fault—though they couldn't explain in just what way. Anyhow, after that the workers looked on Buster with more disfavor than ever. They were forever remarking how lazy and stupid he was. And even the trumpeter was heard to declare that she was ashamed of him—though he was her own brother. <hr class="major" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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