Chapter 21

THE BUMBLEBEE IN THE PUMPKIN



Of course the dancers at Farmer Green's party had to stop now and then to get their breath. And the fiddlers, too, had to pause in order to rest. That is, two of them found it necessary to lay their fiddles aside once in a while. And it was no wonder; for they had each eaten a whole custard pie.

But the third fiddler was different. He was a man after Buster Bumblebee's own heart. He seemed to love to make music and never tired of coaxing the jolliest tunes out of his old fiddle that anybody could hope to hear. He only laughed when his fellow fiddlers lay back in their chairs and mopped their red faces. And just to keep the company in good spirits--and because he couldn't help it--this frolicsome fiddler would start right ahead and play something that was sure to set a body's feet a-going and make him feel so happy that he would want to shout right out--good and loud.

Whenever this merry musician played all alone like that Buster Bumblebee stayed close by him in order to hear better. And so it was that Buster at last met with a surprise. He was bobbing about with a great deal of pleasure to the strains of a lively tune when he heard something that made him settle quickly upon a beam above the jolly fiddler's head.

He wanted to sit still and listen. (Somehow he always had to buzz more or less when he was flying.) Yes! he wanted to listen closely because he was almost certain that he heard the buzzing of a strange bee. And the sound seemed to come right out of the fiddle!

From his seat on the beam Buster Bumblebee looked down at the fiddle, upon which the fiddler was scraping away at a great rate; and he noticed then that there were two openings in it through which a bee might crawl with the greatest ease.

"That's it!" Buster Bumblebee shouted right out loud. "The bee's inside the fiddle.... I don't believe the fiddler knows it!" he chuckled.

And then another idea came into Buster's head. He wondered if that bee was not the raising bee, which he had gone to so much trouble to see and which he had almost given up finding.

Then, happening to glance about him, Buster noticed that many of the people in the place were smiling at one another and nodding their heads wisely, as if to say: "There's the bee! Do you hear him buzz?"

And old dog Spot, who still sat in the doorway, seemed to be smiling, too. Anyhow, his jaws were open so wide that his tongue was hanging out of his mouth.

Feeling very wise himself, Buster Bumblebee bustled over to the doorway and said to old Spot:

"Do you hear that bee? He's inside the fiddle!"

Then old Spot actually laughed aloud.

"You're mistaken," he replied. "That's the bumblebee in the pumpkin."

"Bumblebee!" Buster cried. "Pardon me--but you are mistaken