FOREWORD 



dens too heavy to bear. And how happy I was to 

 see them, with ever so little help, again take wing and 

 fly heartened to their homes. I have sometimes 

 thought that, after all, men are but bees in their ulti- 

 mate essence. 



Thus, with the passing years, I, a keeper of bees, 

 came to be one of them; and even now, though far 

 distant, I wander in dreams through the open aisles 

 about which their white houses cluster, and through 

 that sweet rose-garden. 



My cottage was framed in roses. Clambering 

 Mareschal Neills, yellow as the sun; and Augusta 

 Victorias, white as the snows of dead winters, leaned 

 upon the walls; and all about varieties innumerable 

 and known only to my mother, lifted their heads and 

 prayed for the fulfilment of the law. 



One rose there was of all roses the most beautiful. 

 She called it the Queen of the Prairie. Red it was as 

 the blood of the martyrs; and, huge as a lotus leaf, it 

 blew the most wonderful of flowers. Here was my 

 special pride. I loved it because of her hands; I 

 loved it because it aspired toward perfection. 



Early in a morning now gone a gorgeous spring 

 dawning I rose and went into the garden, as was my 

 wont. The sun had not yet risen, and there was in 

 the air a brooding, a sound of far-away symphonies. 

 From rose to rose I turned, until presently I came to 

 the most marvelous of them all. Wonderful beyond 

 words, I drew it to me a Queen of the Prairie. I 

 breathed its fragrance, thrilled at its beauty, when, 

 with a start, I saw deep within the folds of its heart a 

 little bee, drowsing in sleep. I could but gaze and 



ii 



