HAPPY 



incoming hordes were now laden with honey, and 

 instinctively where it was carried, for my own sac was 

 still stuffed nearly to bursting. 



On I went without thinking, at each turn facing 

 laden and singing workers. It never occurred to me 

 that my progress would eventually lead me to the 

 door of the hive, which was the boundary between my 

 home and the wide universe that spread away to the 

 stars. Many things there were that stopped me on the 

 way. The last laden workers had passed, and I found 

 myself still wandering on. The night song of the hive 

 was already submerging the hymn of the late-arriving 

 workers; but the two were strangely commingling, the 

 one flowing into the other, even as the shades of twilight 

 merge with the dark. 



A mysterious feeling was creeping over me. I felt as 

 though something imponderable was pressing upon me. 

 Suddenly a whiff of air dashed in my face and I stopped, 

 stricken with an indefinable fear. Then, the reassuring 

 ' note of the guards at the door brought again my cour- 

 age, and boldly I walked out into the night. 



Several of the guards ran up to me, smelling me 

 strangely, then let me pass. I must have been wander- 

 ing as in a trance; all around me the night lay black 

 and the soft wind shook my wings, and the little stars 

 seemed hanging just over my head. I was seized with 

 a wild desire to try my wings, to fly into the beckoning 

 unknown. But my wings could not lift me, and 

 happily one of the guards, seeing me approach too near 

 the edge of the alighting-board, cautioned me and 

 suggested my going back into the hive. 



As I turned in I cast one long look back into the 

 26 



