Why the Bees Gather Honey

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Title:     Why the Bees Gather Honey
Author: Carolyn Sherwin Bailey [More Titles by Bailey]

Once upon a time, when it was the story age, and things were very different from what they are now, two tribes of pygmies lived very near each other.

These tribes of little people looked just alike, they both were very, very tiny, and they both lived out of doors in the fields. But in one respect they were quite different. One tribe of little folks spent a great deal of time gathering food of all kinds from the woods and the wild orchards, and storing it away for the winter. The other tribe of little people never harvested or saved at all; they spent all their time playing.

"Come and have a good time with us; winter is a long way off, and you are wasting these sunny days," the lazy pygmies would call to the industrious ones. But the busy pygmies always made the same reply to their little neighbors,

"It is you who are wasting these days. Winter may be far away, but it will be cold and barren when it does come. Everything will be covered deep with snow, and what will we eat if we do not harvest now?"

But the lazy little people danced, and sang, and played on all summer. "Why should we think of the winter?" they said to one another. "Our neighbors who are gathering food so busily will probably have a large enough store for two tribes. They will feed us."

And that is just what happened. When the snow flew, and the lazy pygmies were almost at the point of starving, their kind little neighbors brought them pots of wild honey on which they feasted and grew fat.

Then another summer came. Like all industrious folk, the working pygmies planned to accomplish more that season than they had the year before.

"If we move, so as to live nearer the wild flowers, we can gather more honey," they said. And the whole tribe of industrious little people went to another field where wild roses and lilies, dripping with nectar, grew.

At first the lazy pygmies did not even miss their kind little neighbors. They danced, and sang, and played again through all the long, bright summer days. When it grew cold, and they had to hide themselves to escape the frost and had no food, they said,

"What does it matter? Our friends will come back to us soon with supplies for the winter."

It was too long a journey, though, for the little workers to take through the snow. The days grew more and more cold, and storms swept the earth. The lazy little people cried out in their hunger to the manito, the spirit who watched all outdoors, to come and help them.

So the manito came, but first he went to the industrious tribe of little folk to reward them.

"You shall have wings," the manito said, "to take you from flower to flower that you may gather honey with ease. You shall be called honey bees, and, as you fly, you shall hum so that mortals may hear you and take pattern from your industry. All your life long, you shall live on honey."

Then the manito visited the lazy pygmies. "You, too, shall have wings," he said, "but they shall be to carry you away as mortals drive you from place to place. You shall have buzzing voices to tell mortals you are near that they may kill you. Your food shall be only that which is thrown away. You are the despised flies."

And ever since then the bees have gathered honey, and the flies have been killed in memory of the day when one tribe of little people was busy and kind, and the other tribe indolent and selfish.

[The end]
Carolyn Sherwin Bailey's short story: Why the Bees Gather Honey

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