Chapter 15

THE PRISONER



Buster Bumblebee did not stay long in the dooryard of the missing Carpenter. Saying a mournful good-by to the sad company, he flew away toward Farmer Green's house. It was there that the Carpenter was a prisoner. And Buster could only hope that he might find some way of setting the woodworker free.

Luckily Buster Bumblebee did not have to look long for what he was seeking. On the porch of the farmhouse he soon discovered a honey box, with glass sides. And whom should he see inside it, sitting on a little heap of wild rose leaves and looking forlorn and unhappy--whom should Buster see but the Carpenter.

Buster crowded close against the glass and began to call so loud that the Carpenter couldn't help hearing him. And then the poor fellow came and stood on the other side of the glass barrier, as near Buster as he could get.

"Why don't you come out?" Buster asked.

"How can I?" said the Carpenter. "Don't you see that I'm a prisoner?"

"Yes! But why don't you cut your way out?" Buster Bumblebee asked him.

"Well, I've tried," the Carpenter confessed. "But this glass is so hard that I can't even dent it."

"But you're a woodworker--not a glass-worker!" exclaimed Buster Bumblebee. "And if you're as skillful as people say you are, you ought to be able to bore a hole through one of the wooden ends of your prison."

At that suggestion the Carpenter looked decidedly happier.

"That's so!" he exclaimed. "I wish I had thought of that before."

Of course it was Buster that thought of the plan, then; but he didn't say so to the Carpenter. Instead, Buster shouted through the glass:

"Get to work at once! And I'll wait for you."

So the Carpenter began to cut away at an end of the honey box. But unluckily for him, he had hardly begun his task when Johnnie Green came dancing out upon the porch, followed by two strange boys.

"Here he is!" cried Johnnie, kneeling beside the Carpenter's prison. "See him! Do you know what he is?"

The two strange boys did not wear overalls, like Johnnie Green. But they did not seem to mind that. They knelt right down beside him in their spick-and-span velvet suits and stared curiously at the Carpenter.

"He's a bumblebee!" one of them exclaimed. And the other echoed immediately, "He's a bumblebee!" Being twins, and looking just alike, they always tried to do and say the same things.

Johnnie Green did not tell them their mistake. With an odd smile he slid aside one of the glass doors of the Carpenter's prison and picked the frightened captive up with his fingers.

"Oh!" cried the two guests. "Won't he sting you?"

"Naw!" said Johnnie Green