【英文读物】Wings and Stings

【英文读物】Wings and StingsPreface. HAT is the use of a preface? Most of my young readers will regard it as they would a stile in front of a field in which they were going to enjoy haymaking; as something which they hastily scramble over, eager to get to what is beyond. Such being the case, I think it best to make my preface as short, my stile as small as possible, not being offended if some of my friends should skip over it at one bound. To the more sober readers I would say, If you look for some fun in the little field which you are going to enter, remember that in haymakingvi there is profit as well as amusement; in turning over thoughts in our minds, as in turning over newly-mown grass, we may “make hay while the sun shines,” which will serve us when cloudier days arise.A. L. O. E.CHAPTER I. THE BIG HIVE AND THE LITTLE ONE. AD you not better go on a little faster with your work, Polly?” said Minnie Wingfield, glancing up for a minute from her own, over which her little fingers had been busily moving, and from which she now for the first time raised her eyes.“I wish that there were no such thing as work!” exclaimed Polly, from her favourite seat by the school-room window, through which she had been watching the bees10 thronging in and out of their hive, some flying away to seek honied treasure, some returning laden with it to their home.“I think that work makes one enjoy play more,” replied Minnie, her soft voice scarcely heard amidst the confusion of sounds which filled the school-room; for there was a spelling-class answering questions at the moment, and the hum of voices from the boys school-room, which adjoined that of the girls, added not a little to the noise.The house might itself be regarded as a hive, its rosy-cheeked scholars as a little swarm of bees, and knowledge as the honey of which they were in search, drawn, not from flowers, but from the leaves of certain dogs-eared books, which had few charms for the eyes of Polly Bright.“I never have any play,” said the little girl peevishly. “As soon as school is over, and I should like a little fun, there is Johnny to be looked after, and the baby to be carried. I hate the care of childrenmother11 knows that I doand I think that baby is always crying on purpose to tease me.” THE BIG HIVE.“Yet it must be pleasant to think that you are helping your mother and doing your duty.”Polly uttered a little grunting sound,12 which did not seem like consent, and ran her needle two or three times into her seam, always drawing it back instead of pushing it through, which every one knows is not the way to get on with work.“Why, even these little bees,” Minnie continued, “have a sort of duty of their own; and how steadily they set about it!”“Pretty easy duty,playing amongst flowers and feasting upon honey!”“Oh but”“Minnie Wingfield, no talking allowed in school!” cried the teacher from the top of the room, turning towards the corner near the window. “Polly Bright, you are always the last in your class.”This time the lazy fingers did draw the needle through, but a cross, ill-tempered look was on the face of the little girl; while her companion, Minnie, colouring at the reproof, only worked faster than before.We will leave them seated on their bench, with their sewing in their hands, and passing13 through the little window, as only authors and their readers can do, cross the narrow garden, with its small rows of cabbages and onions, bordered by a line of stunted gooseberry bushes, and mixing with the busy inhabitants of the hive, glide through the tiny opening around which they cluster, and enter the palace of the bees. Now I have a suspicion that though my young readers may be well acquainted with honey-comb and honey, and have even had hives on a bench in their own gardens, they never in their lives have been inside one, and are totally ignorant of the language of bees. For your benefit, therefore, I intend to translate a little of the buzzing chit-chat of the winged nation; and, begging you to consider yourself as little as possible, conduct you at once to the palace of Queen Farina.A very curious and beautiful palace it is; the Crystal Palace itself is not more perfect in its way. Look at the long lines of cells, framed with the nicest care, row above row,14 built of pure white wax, varnished with gum, and filled with provisions for the winter. Yonder are the nurseries for the infant bees; these larger apartments are for the royal race; that, largest of all, is the state-chamber of the queen. How strait are the passagesjust wide enough to let two travellers pass without jostling! And as for the inhabitants of this singular palace, or rather, I should say, this populous city, though for a moment you may think them all hurrying and bustling about in utter confusion, I assure you that they are governed by the strictest ordereach knows her own business, her own proper place. I am afraid that before you ar