Boys -- Juvenile fiction; Fantasy literature; Nature -- Juvenile fiction; Self-reliance -- Juvenile fiction
So they waited and were silent, and as nothing came and nothing
happened, Martin sitting on the mossy ground began to feel a strange
drowsiness stealing over him. He rubbed his eyes and looked round; he
wanted to keep very wide awake and alert, so as not to miss the sight of
anything that might come. He was vexed with himself for feeling drowsy,
and wondered why it was; then listening to the low continuous hum of the
bees, he concluded that it was that low, soft, humming sound that made
him sleepy. He began to look at the bees, and saw that they were unlike
other wild bees he knew, that they were like bumble-bees in shape but
much smaller, and were all of a golden brown colour: they were in
scores and hundreds coming and going, and had their home or nest in the
rock a few feet above his head. He got up, and climbing from his
mother's knee to her shoulder, and standing on it, he looked into the
crevice into which the bees were streaming, and saw their nest full of
clusters of small round objects that looked like white berries.
Then he came down and told her what he had seen, and wanted to know all
about it, and when she answered that the little round fruit-like objects
he had seen were cells full of purple honey that tasted sweet and salt,
he wanted her to get him some.
"Not now--not today," she replied, "for now you love me and are
contented to be with me, and you are my own darling child. When you are
naughty, and try to grieve me all you can, and would like to go away and
never see me more, you shall taste the purple honey."
He looked up into her face wondering and troubled at her words, and she
smiled down so sweetly on his upturned face, looking very beautiful and
tender, that it almost made him cry to think how wilful and passionate
he had been, and climbing on to her knees he put his little face against
her cheek.
[Illustration: THE DOE--TIMIDLY SMELT AT HIS HAND, THEN LICKED IT WITH
HER LONG PINK TONGUE.]
Then, while he was still caressing her, light tripping steps were heard
over the stony path, and through the bushes came two beautiful wild
animals--a doe with her fawn! Martin had often seen the wild deer on the
plains, but always at a great distance and running; now that he had
them standing before him he could see just what they were like, and of
all the four-footed creatures he had ever looked on they were
undoubtedly the most lovely. They were of a slim shape, and of a very
bright reddish fawn-colour, the young one with dappled sides; and both
had large trumpet-like ears, which they held up as if listening, while
they gazed fixedly at Martin's face with their large, dark, soft eyes.
Enchanted with the sight of them, he slipped down from his mother's lap,
and stretched out his arms towards them, and the doe, coming a little
nearer, timidly smelt at his hand, then licked it with her long, pink
tongue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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