MAKING GAME OF OLD DOG SPOT
"Where have you been keeping yourself?" Buster Bumblebee cried, themoment he caught sight of Jimmy Rabbit's ears sticking up from behind ahead of Farmer Green's lettuce. "It's quite plain that you forgot to meetme, so I might tell you about the raising bee."
At that Jimmy Rabbit promptly replied that he had come there eachmorning.
"Anyhow," he said, "you promised to meet me. And since you haven't met meuntil now it must be your fault, for you certainly haven't done as youagreed."
Buster Bumblebee looked puzzled. He was sure that the fault had not beenhis. But his wits were not so nimble as Jimmy Rabbit's. And he couldthink of no answer at all.
"Well, what do you know about the raising bee?" Jimmy asked him with anencouraging smile.
"You were mistaken about that," Buster told him eagerly. "There wasn'tany raising bee. Farmer Green's neighbors for miles around came to helphim put up the frame of his new barn. And afterwards they enjoyed a feastunder the trees--and a dance."
Jimmy Rabbit began to shake in a very strange manner.
"Ho! ho!" he cried in a jolly voice. "You are the one that'smistaken--and not I! You saw a raising bee and didn't know it! FarmerGreen's friends raised the timbers for the barn. And that's why it'scalled a raising bee. Any helpful, neighborly gathering like that isknown as a bee--though you may not be aware of that fact."
Buster Bumblebee stared open-mouthed. He had never suspected such athing. But Jimmy Rabbit said it was so. And there was nothing to do butbelieve him.
"So they had something to eat--and a dance too, eh?" said Jimmy Rabbitpleasantly.
"Yes," said Buster, "and there was a bumblebee in a pumpkin, though Icouldn't see him. But old dog Spot said he did. And I suppose I wasmistaken, for I thought he was inside a fiddle."
And now Jimmy Rabbit was laughing again, holding his sides and shaking sohard that it seemed as if his ears would fall off if he didn't stop soon.
"No, you were not mistaken at all!" he cried, as soon as he could speakagain. "That's an old, old tune. My grandfather has hummed it to me manya time. He used to say that there never was another tune just like it."
"What tune?" Buster Bumblebee asked him. "I must say I don't know whatyou're talking about."
"Why, The Bumblebee in the Pumpkin!" Jimmy Rabbit informed him. "That'sthe name of a tune. Every good fiddler knows it. And since the buzzingsound comes out of the fiddle, the bumblebee must be inside it, ofcourse."
For a moment Buster looked almost peevish. He had intended to take JimmyRabbit down a peg by telling him he had been mistaken. And here was JimmyRabbit, explaining every strange thing, just as he always did! It wasmost annoying--so Buster thought. But all at once a comforting ideapopped into his head.
"Old dog Spot was wrong, wasn't he?" Buster cried.
"He certainly was," Jimmy Rabbit replied.
"Ha! ha!" laughed Buster Bumblebee. "Isn't it odd how stupid some peopleare?"
"It certainly is!" said Jimmy Rabbit. And for some unknown reason helaughed harder than ever before.
But Buster Bumblebee did not mind that in the least. He thought thatJimmy Rabbit was making game of old dog Spot.
THE END.
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