46 Musings by Camp-Fire and Wayside 



honey-laden legs are in full play, and she runs with 

 all her energy toward the portal. A sentinel 

 brushes her face with her antenna, but she does 

 not pause to return the salutation. Apply your ear 

 to the roof of a hive. There is a low hum of 

 industry so soft that it would lull one to sleep. 

 One can hear a sharper note occasionally — some 

 word of direction or command, probably. This, 

 too, is a society — a human society on a different 

 scale of being, of thought, of animating purpose. 

 Among the thousands of individuals in that com- 

 munity there is not a trace of selfishness. The 

 whole of life is given to the whole; and of the war- 

 riors who go forth to battle for the defense of the 

 realm, not one returns alive. Beyond this, self- 

 sacrifice and heroism cannot go, because there is 

 no moral land either farther or higher. I pass over 

 what was a noble forest here, of living trees, majes- 

 tic and sublime, to find it a sandy desert broken by 

 fire-blackened stumps. But that bee did not destroy 

 the goldenrod, she fructified it. She was not met 

 on the balcony by another bee full of envy and 

 avarice, who tried to sting her and rob her of her 

 hard-won honey, and of the credit of winning it. 

 The busy, soothing hum is the voice of harmony, of 

 good-will, of kindly thrift. There is no discord 

 either of voice or work in the beehive. The com- 

 munity has enemies which it is armed to resist. It 

 has only one species of friends, man. But men 

 care no more for the bees than for the hornets. 



