The Tale of Buster Bumblebee | Page 3

if you want to make me happy, I'll tell you the best way in the world."
"Oh! Will you?" cried Buster Bumblebee hopefully. And in his eagerness he drew even nearer to the trumpeter, who actually smiled at him. But there was something in her smile that sent a shiver up and down Buster's back. It was not at all a pleasant smile.
"If you want to make me happy all you need do is to keep out of my sight," said the trumpeter rudely. "You're just a lazy, good-for-nothing drone. And for my part, I don't see why you're allowed to stay in our house. If I had my way you'd be driven out into the world to shift for yourself.... And I know others who say the same."
Upon hearing that disagreeable speech Buster Bumblebee jumped back quickly. He was not angry--but merely disappointed, for he had expected something quite different.
"You--er--you trumpet beautifully," he stammered, remembering that that was another remark which Chirpy Cricket had suggested as being likely to put the trumpeter into a pleasant frame of mind.
At that the rude creature laughed most scornfully.
"I'd like to know how you can say that," she sneered. "You're so lazy and such a sleepy-head that you never hear me when I wake the household. In fact, I don't believe you would ever wake up enough to crawl out of bed if you didn't get hungry--and goodness knows you do love to eat."
"No such thing!" cried Buster Bumblebee.
And happening just at that moment to spy an unusually tempting clover-top close beside him, he lighted upon it and began to suck up its sweet juices.
The trumpeter at once screamed joyfully and pointed a finger straight at him.
"There you go!" she cried. "You have to stop and eat even while you're talking with a lady! Why, you eat and sleep so much that you don't know what you're doing or saying half the time."
One might naturally think that such a remark would have angered Buster. But he was not one to lose his temper easily. And he merely looked at the trumpeter sadly and said:
"Don't speak to me like that! I'm a queen's son. I'm a gentleman."

IV
BUSTER FINDS A SISTER
Buster Bumblebee's announcement that he was a queen's son--and a gentleman--seemed to amuse the trumpeter hugely. She held her sides and laughed uproariously.
"That's nothing!" she said at last. "I'm one myself!"
"One what?" Buster asked her quickly. "You're certainly no gentleman--for you just referred to yourself as a lady not two minutes ago. And neither can you be anybody's son, I should think."
"I mean I'm a queen's daughter--though maybe you didn't know it," the trumpeter replied.
And Buster Bumblebee answered in a dazed fashion that he had had no idea she was of royal blood, like himself.
"It's true," the trumpeter assured him. "You'd never guess it; but I'm your own sister."
Well, Buster Bumblebee was so surprised that he almost fell off the clover-head on which he was sitting. It was really a sad blow to be told that that disagreeable, vixenish trumpeter, who awakened the workers each morning, was so closely related to him. But it was no more than he might have expected, living as he did in a family of more than two hundred souls.
"It's--it's hard to believe," he gasped, shaking his head slowly.
"It certainly is," said the trumpeter. "I don't understand how my own brother can be so lazy as you are."
"It's not that I'm lazy--it's the way my mother brought me up," Buster protested.
"Our mother, you mean," the trumpeter corrected him. "Maybe you're right.... After all, you'd only be in everybody's way if you tried to work--you're so awkward and clumsy. So maybe it's just as well for you to play the gentleman--though you must find it a dull life."
"It suits me," said Buster. "But I do wish you could manage to rouse the workers in the morning without disturbing me." He was bolder, now that he knew he was talking to his own sister.
The trumpeter pondered for a little time before replying.
"It's my duty to trumpet loudly," she said at last. "The summer is none too long. And there's a great deal of honey to be made before fall.... Have you thought of stuffing your ears with cotton?" she inquired.
"Why, no!" said Buster Bumblebee. "That's a fine plan, I'm sure. And I'll follow it this very night."
So he thanked his new-found sister and said good-by, for he wanted to look for some cotton at once.
"Goodness me!" the trumpeter exclaimed as soon as Buster had left her. "Here I've wasted a precious quarter of an hour when I should have been working." Thereupon she began gathering nectar as fast as she could, and forgot all about Buster Bumblebee and his trouble.
When he left the trumpeter in the clover field, Buster was feeling quite cheerful.