The Bee Who Heard Bells — Along the deer path, Orson carried a little cork jar and listened for a sound small enough to take home. Clover smelled like honey and rain-wet hay. Read the full story →
Along the deer path, Orson carried a little cork jar and listened for a sound small enough to take home. Clover smelled like honey and rain-wet hay. Grass blades brushed his socks with cool whispers. Above him, tall foxgloves leaned together, their spotted bells hanging still as if they were waiting for someone to ring them.
A bumblebee bumbled past his ear—zumm, zumm—and stopped at one pale bell. Orson held his breath. The bee did not push inside right away. She tapped the rim with her feet, and the flower answered with a faint, hollow note, softer than a thimble on glass. “Did you hear that?” Orson whispered. The bee’s wings shivered, and three more bells gave three different notes.
Then Orson understood: the bee was not collecting nectar first. She was reading the meadow’s music, bell by bell, so the afternoon wind would know where to go. He opened his cork jar, but only to let the sound pass through it. When the breeze came, the foxgloves nodded, the bee lifted, and curiosity ran away with him down the deer path—can you find the bell that might ring next?
