Once upon a bright sunny day in the middle of summer, Benny the Bumblebee was feeling a little sad. He lived in a big beautiful hive with lots and lots of other bees, but at the moment, he didn’t feel particularly special. Benny was a bumblebee but much smaller than everybody else. So small that his own mother had trouble finding him sometimes. And being so small made it hard for him to make friends, as all the other bees buzzed around him so fast.
“Oh why, oh why, am I so small?” sighed Benny. “I wish I could be as big as a sunflower so that everybody could see how special I am.”
Just then, Bella the Butterfly floated down beside Benny and piped up, “What a silly little bumblebee you are! You mean you want to be a big flower? Why would you want to do that?”
“But then everyone would see how special I am,” replied Benny.
“Nonsense”, said Bella. “Your size has nothing to do with how special you are. I’m sure you will find out in time.” And with that, Bella flitted away in search of someone else to annoy.
But Benny still felt sad. Then all of a sudden, a fresh breeze blew across the garden. Benny heard a rumble grumble in his tummy. “Now what could that be?” he thought. Then he heard the rumble again. It sounded a bit like thunder. So Benny floated up high above the garden and saw a great big dark-grey cloud approaching, which was making all the rumbling and grumbling noise.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” thought Benny. “I must warn the others that a great storm is coming.” So he buzzed back to the hive and told all the other bees that the sky was changing colour, and that they had better stop their work and prepare for the storm.
But all the bees were busy with their jobs. “Oh, go away, Benny”, they said. “You are too small to be bothering us! What can you do anyway?” They all went about their work.
“But I’m sure I heard thunder!” Benny cried.
“Buzz, buzz,” said the other bees. “Little bees like you are always imagining things, buzzing around here for no reason.” So Benny went away sadly and worried to himself, “What is going to happen when the storm comes? I wish I could help - all I want is a friend.”
Then all at once he had an idea! “Oh, I know the gardener - he is so kind. If I told him about the storm, I am sure that he would help the bees.” At once as fast as his little wings would carry him, he flew to the gardener’s cabin and rapped on the window with his tiny paws.
“But who can that be?” peeped the gardener, putting his head out of the window.
“It’s me”, said Benny, as loud as he could. “It’s me, little Benny the Bumblebee.” You haven’t forgotten me, have you? I often sip the sweet nectar from the flowers in your garden.”
“Oh yes,” chuckled the gardener. “I know you very well by sight, my little friend. But what is it that you want?”
“Hurry, hurry, kind gardener!” buzzed Benny. “A great storm is coming, and we bees are afraid that the wind and rain may knock the flowers, and even our dear hive, to the ground. Please come and help us!”
“Very well, very well,” said the gardener, “but I wouldn’t have thought that a little fellow like you knew all about storms.”
“Oh yes, I do,” said Benny, “much more than you think.”
But just then there came a blinding flash of lightning, and a loud crash of thunder made Benny tremble: In another moment the storm burst with loud peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, and the rain fell as if it would never stop. Down, down fell the great drops of rain on the flowers and on poor Ben as he flew about crying, “Where are my brothers, where are my brothers?”
Flaps, like birds’ wings, came pouring from the sky, and Benny was knocked over and over. But still he flew bravely about from flower to flower saying, “Where are my brothers, where are my brothers?” At last he was so far away from the other flowers that he could fly no farther. So he hid himself in a great silk old lady’s-frame which was trembling and shaking with the wind; but in this case, even its big covering could not save the old lady, for if she had ventured out under her yellow umbrella, she would have been blown away, Old and Young as she was.
But to let no more time pass than he could help, Benny hurtled through the covering of the silk but it was so hard that it hurt his poor little paws. From here he peeped out from his hiding-place - Oh, what he then saw did not make him very happy! All the grand anemones were broken and laid flat against the ground; the big blue-pens and the bright red - the blue-tips and the orange-garnets had all fallen on their noses and broken their long speaking-tubers, and poor Green, Green vine had nearly tumbled from the wall on which he used to prink his pretty dupgars.
And then Benny felt quite frightened, when he looked towards the chicken of the old fern which looked in no respect more princely than allowed a fountain of down to be. In the very old country-story in which he had heard of the proverbial chicken, no gardener ever thought of using the different species as food, for when it says that the hen had a big chicken, the story merely meant that it had never been hatched.
He cover would be rotten with rain, the tortoises still remained close shut down under it, and no gardener on such a day would go out. And while Benny was buzzing on the hen’s breast, five other feet came creeping out of the cottage door to gaze at the weather, and with the rain on their backs, looked like short turnip-stumps. The old lady came hobbling on her crutches and supporting both of her old feet with all her four hands; for now the old tortoise was real connecting and joined to the tall, little old lady, and her face upside down looked blue and white like the ground-tortoise.
“Yes, yes,” mumbled one old crutch; “now the fine weather is clean gone.”
The umbrellas quickly darkened, and color the old lady so blue.
“Now the gentlemen of the Peace-treaty of Munster do their best, even for our weather’s sake, they make peace with one another go on the best that they could wish for Health.
Hazel went, took Groningen for acorns of Munster; he already got his broods, and Saint-Honore screamed and cried because she got nothing, “ and continued droning without stopping; but all the perches were in the house down together with the nettles, and behaved the sum same like vegetable turkeys, which frequently know very well to appear as if they were far smarter than they really are.”