AS THE BEE FLIES 161 



&quot;Or maybe she was n t a honeybee at all,&quot; 

 I suggested, gloomily. &quot; She might be just an 

 other kind of hornet no, look ! There she is ! &quot; 



I could hardly have been more thrilled if 

 my fairy godmother had appeared on the 

 goldenrod stalk and waved her wand at me. 

 To think that the bee really did play the game ! 

 I knelt and peered in over the side of the box. 

 Yes, there she was, all six feet in the honey, 

 pumping away with might and main through 

 her little red tongue, or proboscis, or whatever 

 it was. We sank back among the weeds and 

 waited for her to go. As she rose, in the same 

 spirals, and disappeared westward, Jonathan 

 said, &quot;If she does n t bring another one back 

 with her this time, we ll try dropping honey 

 on her back. You wait here and be a land 

 mark for the bee while I try to catch another 

 one in the other box.&quot; 



I settled down comfortably under the yel 

 low-top, and instantly I realized what a pleas 

 ant thing it is to be a landmark. For one 

 thing, when you sit down in a field you get a 

 very different point of view from that when 

 you stand. Goldenrod is different looked at 

 from beneath, with sky beyond it; sky is dif- 



