A Bee was in her Bonnet White

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A Bee was in her Bonnet White

      

       By Ding Dang Doggy Doug

        A bee was in her bonnet on a bright warm sunny day

         It flew in while she put it on to walk in early May

         She noticed it after a while when bending down to smell

         A flower of the season bright a pretty pale blue bell

         And “ouch” she said for it stung her then and tried to fly away

         She smacked the top of her white hat and had the wit to say

         “If every tiny creature bit each other creature so

         The world would quickly pass away for we’d all want to go”

Carla walked through the woods and met there on a ridge of slender birch trees a shaggy wolf, which stepped out of the gorse and began to speak to her.

       “What is your name, little one?” it inquired with gentle voice and a smile wide as could be. It appeared so friendly and good-hearted that Carla herself gradually inclined in the same direction. She had been very frightened at the first, but now she settled down and her courage got the better of her agitation. She pulled herself up as straight as ever she might and spoke in answer.

       “Hello, sir, whoever you are. I do not recall having heard a wolf speak in a language other than howling before, but since you seem to know mine, I will assume that you are not who you appear to be?” Her salutation tilted up at the end to form a question that she hardly expected to be taken for such. The rest of her interlocutions were not queries, however, unless she intended an answer, and she continued thus.

       “I am afraid of wolves, normally, and I felt great trepidation when you stepped out from behind the tree. Your kind words and refined manner, however, have so far ministered to my agitation that I feel I may ask you a question without either appearing rude or encouraging anything unmild in your behavior. She paused, watching his mouth for signs of irrationality. None was forthcoming. The wolf, wise and experienced in the ways of relationships, waited for its companion to continue as she inclined. A whiskey jack flew into the pine and stayed there, where it rattled out a message to a mate somewhere further inland. The wolf took snuff and sneezed, apologizing immediately.

       “Accepted,” she said, and asked him this. “Sir, you have not told me your name?” She paused, waited, and then found that her impatience began to itch in her shoulders. Her feet commenced to move forward along the road. Her dress, a red one, below the knees, and with a crinoline lacy and white visible beneath the hem, made a rustling sound with each step, not unlike the leaves of aspen in a breeze. The wolf followed beside her near the edge of the path.

       “My name,” he said, awkwardly pausing, “is Wagner. I am Germanic by birth, and of Teutonic royal blood. Yet, I find myself here, in this granite country, transported away from my natural environment.” He stopped, but found his friend interested and inclined to hear more.

       “Who are you, miss, and how did you come to be here in the woods in the vicinity of Kenora on the Lake of the Woods?” He took snuff once more, apologized, enjoyed the drug immensely for a moment and then turned towards her again. A mottled frog hopped diagonally over the path before them and disappeared into the shrubbery.

       “My name, sir, is Carla. I am fifteen, and am first in my class. My grades are always “A”s and my teachers think that I am a very good student.” She waited for some encouragement and got it in the smile Wagner gave. He waved a paw as if asking her to continue and let his furry arm touch her side for a moment. The limb was warm and soft and he wished he could stroke it in the sunshine. He did not, of course, act on his inclination since we unbidden do not do as we desire in matters such as these. Small lime leaves, recently buds, waved on the more tardy birches. On others, full leaves smiled and looked about as if happy to be observing the world once more.

The way grew rocky and often their feet faltered over this projection or that. They appeared headed toward a nearby lake. Heat beat down with vigor. For a time they walked together, wolf and girl, and said little. She felt radiant with sun, inside as much as outside on shoulders and hair. Wagner needed to cool off and thought about ducking into the shadows of the woods, even just for a few moments, into its easing breeze, but he desisted. Soon the lake came into view.

“We maybe should go swimming?” Wagner said, indicating the water glimmering ahead, blue as herons' eyes. Far distant waves lapped on a rocky promontory. The rise of hills at successive points of land along the lake edge and the grand sweep of spruce and pine on each of these made the longing to get into the lake urgent of a sudden, and Carla thought and in time, after silence, nodded.

       They were soon in, side by side, calling out how cold it was on skin and neck, but then just as quickly that left and other sensations of more relaxing kinds succeeded and they began to swim out from land. They found themselves in a bay a few hundred yards long and a hundred wide. Paddling left, they stayed close to the bank, plying their way by inlets and indentations of shore until they had by inchworm circled the entire bay. They stayed close together, pressing forward, speaking little, their fingers or feet touching now and then. Soon, too soon, tired, they climbed out and sat side by side in the sun on the rock.

       Quiet an hour, lying, sitting, knees up, knees down, they began in time to speak freely. They discoursed of water, of wolves, of girls, of nature and of the holy union of all creatures. From that summer on, Carla and Wagner looked forward to swimming around the bay together each chance they got. Carla took at least one annual swim in his company for all the years she was a girl, for all the years she was a young woman, eventually married, and for all the years she was an old woman, even after her husband died. She never forgot Wagner and Wagner never forgot her.