quietly feeding. Then the sun passed down behind the hills; but I knew
that the next day he would arise again.



VI. A DREAM OF WILD BEES.

A mother sat alone at an open window. Through it came the voices of the
children as they played under the acacia-trees, and the breath of the hot
afternoon air. In and out of the room flew the bees, the wild bees, with
their legs yellow with pollen, going to and from the acacia-trees, droning
all the while. She sat on a low chair before the table and darned. She
took her work from the great basket that stood before her on the table:
some lay on her knee and half covered the book that rested there. She
watched the needle go in and out; and the dreary hum of the bees and the
noise of the children's voices became a confused murmur in her ears, as she
worked slowly and more slowly. Then the bees, the long-legged wasp-like
fellows who make no honey, flew closer and closer to her head, droning.
Then she grew more and more drowsy, and she laid her hand, with the
stocking over it, on the edge of the table, and leaned her head upon it.
And the voices of the children outside grew more and more dreamy, came now
far, now near; then she did not hear them, but she felt under her heart
where the ninth child lay. Bent forward and sleeping there, with the bees
flying about her head, she had a weird brain-picture; she thought the bees
lengthened and lengthened themselves out and became human creatures and
moved round and round her. Then one came to her softly, saying, "Let me
lay my hand upon thy side where the child sleeps. If I shall touch him he
shall be as I."

She asked, "Who are you?"