In the morning, Christian awoke singing, and ready to go on his way; but the people of the house begged him to remain until he had seen all the beauties of the place; so he remained with them two days.

The first day they showed him the armory, with all manner of furnishings for the protection of pilgrims. There were swords and shields and helmets and breastplates, and shoes that would not wear out; and enough for as many pilgrims as there are stars in heaven.

The second day they took him to the top of the house, and told him to look toward the south. There, at a great distance, he saw a most pleasant mountainous country, beautiful with woods, vineyards, and fruits of all kinds. There were flowers, also, and springs and fountains of purest water. He asked the name of the country, and they told him it was Immanuel's Land, and that, like the House Beautiful, it was for the use and comfort of all pilgrims like himself.

On the third day they armed him with sword and shield and helmet and breastplate. Upon his feet they placed shoes that would not wear out. When thus prepared for the journey, he walked out with his friends to the gate. They gave him a loaf, a bottle of wine, and a cluster of raisins, cautioned him of the dangers of the journey, and sent him on his way.

Adapted from "Pilgrim's Progress."

- JOHN BUNYAN.

WORK IN THE

HONEYBEE'S HIVE

In the honeybee's home there is a large family. First there is the mother, called the queen bee, who lays the eggs for the whole colony. Then there are thousands of daughters as like as one pea is like another. These are called workers, for it is they who do all the work in the hive. The drones, their brothers, are fine gentlemen who never gather honey or pollen, nor do any work, but stay at home and are taken care of by their sisters.

Since bees eat little besides pollen and honey, a good store of these must be laid up for winter use. Gathering the pollen and honey, however, is but a small part of the worker bee's business. Among other things, she must make jars for storing food for use when flowers are not in bloom.

If I tell you there is something very wonderful about the honeybee that you have not heard, you will not be surprised. She has pockets!

You do not think pockets are so very wonderful? Well, neither do I, just the ordinary, everyday pockets for carrying pencils, and handkerchiefs, and knives. But honeybee has wax pockets! Not pockets made of wax, but pockets filled with wax.

Honeybee has a head. Most creatures have heads. But connected with honeybee's head, by a short neck, she has a

chest, which we call the thorax. Her legs and wings are fastened to the thorax. The rest of her body, attached to the thorax by a slender waist, is the abdomen, the largest part of her body.

This abdomen is made of rings connected to each other by a thin skinlike membrane. These rings fit close together, under each other, or may be drawn out to lengthen the abdomen. There are six of these rings, and under four of them, on the underside of the abdomen, are shallow hollows, two on each ring. These eight hollows are the wax pockets. The queen and the drones have no wax pockets. They are found only on the workers.

EIGHT WAX POCKETS

If you think honeybee gathers wax and puts it into these pockets, you are very much mistaken. She does not gather wax; she makes it.

When you undertake to store up honey, you must have something to put it in. You cannot pour it on the floor or in a corner, where it would stick to every one who went near it, and where it would run out and be wasted. You must have bottles, or cans, or jars, or something of the kind to pour it into.

If you are a bee, you cannot go to the store and buy these things; you have to make them. So you eat all the honey you possibly can, and then go hang yourself up in the top of the hive and wait. When the bee eats so much honey that she can do nothing but sleep, she knows what she is doing. Of course the sweet food must be disposed of in some way; and in fact, there is formed from it a substance somewhat like fat, only different.

This substance is wax; and it finds its way in liquid form through the pores of her body into the eight pockets on the underside of her abdomen. We might say she sweats out the wax into these pockets.

Wax makes excellent jars for storing honey. It is tight and firm, keeping out air and water. It is strong enough to bear the weight of the bees as they move to and fro at their work. You may be sure honeybee knows all this. She is not surprised to find her pockets full of wax, and she knows what to do with it.

Honeybee's hind legs each have a pair of nippers for pulling the wax scales out of the pockets. When she has pulled out the scales, she moistens them in her mouth with saliva, for they are too brittle at first to be useful. When they are thoroughly moistened and softened, she pulls them out into white bands.

Now she is all ready to make honey cups. First, in company with a number of her sisters, she sticks a little wax along one side of the hive, near the top. Then the six-sided cups, or cells, are begun.

This sounds easy enough; but suppose you try to make a six-sided cell of moist beeswax, and see how you succeed! Of course you have not the best tools in the world for the work. Good as fingers may be for cutting with scissors, or driving nails, or picking up pins, they are poor tools for making cells of beeswax.

Honeybee is supplied with something better. Those claws on her feet are excellent wax tools, and so are her jaws. She even uses her delicate tongue in the finer work of the cell. The bees begin at the roof and build the comb downward.