library, printed in golden letters and bound in old gold plush.

Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the very first
monarch of the royal family of which this king was a member, there
were no bees at all in the kingdom. Not a child in the whole country,
not even the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
tasted a bit of bread and honey.

But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one just across the
river was swarming with them. That kingdom was governed by a king who
was the tenth cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather brooms
on his bank of the river to keep the bees from flying over, and he
would not export a single bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had
been offered immense sums.

However, the inhabitants of this second country were so cruel and
tormenting in their dispositions, and the children so teased the
bees, which were stingless and could not defend themselves, that they
rebelled. They stopped making honey, and one day they swarmed, and
flew in a body across the river in spite of the frantic waving of the
ostrich-feather brooms.

The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful hives to be built
for them, and instituted a national festival in their honor, which
ever since had been observed regularly on the sixteenth day of May.

Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom across the river. Not
one would return to where its ancestors had been so hardly treated;
here everybody was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The present