d gold plush.

Centuries ago, so the legend ran, in the days of the very first
monarch of the royal family of which this king was a member, there
were no bees at all in the kingdom. Not a child in the whole country,
not even the little princes and princesses in the palace, had ever
tasted a bit of bread and honey.

But, while there were no bees in this kingdom, one just across the
river was swarming with them. That kingdom was governed by a king who
was the tenth cousin of the first, and not very well disposed toward
him. He had stationed lines of sentinels with ostrich-feather brooms
on his bank of the river to keep the bees from flying over, and he
would not export a single bee, nor one ounce of honey, although he had
been offered immense sums.

However, the inhabitants of this second country were so cruel and
tormenting in their dispositions, and the children so teased the
bees, which were stingless and could not defend themselves, that they
rebelled. They stopped making honey, and one day they swarmed, and
flew in a body across the river in spite of the frantic waving of the
ostrich-feather brooms.

The other King was overjoyed. He ordered beautiful hives to be built
for them, and instituted a national festival in their honor, which
ever since had been observed regularly on the sixteenth day of May.

Up to this day there were no bees in the kingdom across the river. Not
one would return to where its ancestors had been so hardly treated;
here everybody was kind to them, and even paid them honor. The present
King had established an order of the "Golden Bee." The Knights of the
Golden Bee wore ribbons studded with golden bees on their breasts, and
their watchword was a sort of a "buzz-z-z," like the humming of a bee.
When they were in full regalia they wore also some curious wings made
of gold wire and lace. The Knights of the Golden Bee comprised the
finest nobles of the court.

In addition to them were the "Bee Guards." They were the King's own
body-guards. Their uniform was white with green cuffs and collar and
facings. On the green were swarms of embroidered bees. They carried a
banner of green silk worked with bees and roses.

So the bee might fairly have been considered the national emblem of
Romalia, for that was the name of the country. The first word which
the children learned to spell in school was "b-e-e, bee," instead of
"b-o-y, boy." The poorest citizen had a bush of roses and a bee-hive
in his ya