t you're doing or saying half the time."

One might naturally think that such a remark would have angered Buster.
But he was not one to lose his temper easily. And he merely looked at the
trumpeter sadly and said:

"Don't speak to me like that! I'm a queen's son. I'm a gentleman."

IV

BUSTER FINDS A SISTER

Buster Bumblebee's announcement that he was a queen's son--and a
gentleman--seemed to amuse the trumpeter hugely. She held her sides and
laughed uproariously.

"That's nothing!" she said at last. "I'm one myself!"

"One what?" Buster asked her quickly. "You're certainly no gentleman--for
you just referred to yourself as a lady not two minutes ago. And neither
can you be anybody's son, I should think."

"I mean I'm a queen's daughter--though maybe you didn't know it," the
trumpeter replied.

And Buster Bumblebee answered in a dazed fashion that he had had no idea
she was of royal blood, like himself.

"It's true," the trumpeter assured him. "You'd never guess it; but I'm
your own sister."

Well, Buster Bumblebee was so surprised that he almost fell off the
clover-head on which he was sitting. It was really a sad blow to be told
that that disagreeable, vixenish trumpeter, who awakened the workers each
morning, was so closely related to him. But it was no more than he might
have expected, living as he did in a family of more than two hundred
souls.

"It's--it's hard to believe," he gasped, shaking his head slowly.

"It certainly is," said the trumpeter. "I don't understand how my own
brother can be so lazy as you are."

"It's not that I'm lazy--it's the way my mother brought me up," Buster
protested.

"_Our_ mother, you mean," the trumpeter corrected him. "Maybe you're
right.... After all, you'd only be in everybody's way if you tried to
work--you're so awkward and clumsy. So maybe it's just as well for you to
play the gentleman--though you must find it a dull life."

"It suits me," said Buster. "But I do wish you could manage to rouse the
workers in the morning without disturbing me." He was bolder, now that he
knew he was talking to his own sister.

The trumpeter pondered for a little time before replying.

"It's my duty to trumpet loudly," she said at last. "The summer is none
too long. And there's a great deal of honey to be made before fall....
Have you thought of stuffing your ears with cotton?" she inquired.

"Why, no!" said Buster Bumblebee. "That's a fine plan, I'm sure. And I'l