DOMESTICATED NATURE. 



92 



domesticated 



3?P&* 



NATURE 



MY "HONEY" Pi^TS. 



Near the apiary is the pet house. My 

 visitors are taken from one to the other. 

 In the first, I explain that honey is a 

 sour-sweet — ■ formic acid supplies the 

 sour and the grape sugar of the trans- 

 formed nectar supplies the sweet. That 

 is why I like honey. It gives the widest 

 range all at once. Roses are better for 

 the thorns on the stems. I grow sun- 

 flowers in the potato patch so that lov- 

 ers of light and lovers of darkness may 

 be contrasting companions. 



Perhaps it is this love of opposites 

 that induces me to keep "Nectar," the 

 angel, in a cage, and next to it "Formic," 

 the imp, in the pet house. Perhaps, in 

 themselves, they are not in harmony ; but 



to the visitor just 



coming 



from the 



apiary they are. Pain puncturing and 

 taste tickling are there in partnership. 

 And here in these two cages are the 

 gentle and the ugly — the angelic and the 

 d dweller of the lowlands. Sci- 

 entists call him the Marsh hawk. The 

 other pet from its sweetness and loving 

 ways is rightly called "home-ing." 



Sometimes Nectar and Formic go vis- 

 iting — when I let them, or, perhaps 

 more accurately stating, make them. 1 

 think that each has misunderstood the 

 other. That was before I introduced 

 them, and made them friendly. Now 

 one of them knows that on such occas- 

 ions there is nothing to fear. The other 

 realizes that it isn't time for eating. 



In the two I see a little world. Happi- 

 ness with law and misery with anarchy. 



NECTAR" AND "FORMIC. 



