NOVEMBER 2: The Butterfly and Bumble-Bee
“Good-by,” said the golden butterfly. “It is late for me to be out and I must leave now. I have come around because it is what they call Indian summer.
“That is when another week of summer comes in the autumn when people have almost become used to cold weather.”
“I must still do a little more work in this warm sunshine,” the bumble-bee said; “you know it has been said of us that we improve each shining hour.”
“But,” said the golden butterfly, “how do you know you’re improving each shining hour? Aren’t the hours all right as they are?”
“Yes,” said the bumble-bee, “that may be so, and they may be all right spent idly by some people. I don’t suppose the hours care so very much, though I have heard they hated to be wasted, and we will never waste them.”
“But they like to give pleasure and to have people take rests and enjoy themselves, too,” said the golden butterfly. And as he waved a golden wing in farewell he said to himself, “Bumble-bees overdo things. They work so hard that they’ve forgotten how to play! And that is the saddest thing about their lives.”