A long time before I was born, my grandma and grandpa had a young family of four little girls. During the Great Depression (大萧条时期), work was hard to find, so Grandpa did whatever jobs he could. On weekends he and Grandma dug a garden to grow some of their own food.
Everybody worked to keep the garden growing. All summer long, the family ate food and enjoyed flowers from the garden. Grandma put up strawberry jam, tomatoes, beans, peppers, pears and peaches in canning jars. They were good to eat through the long winter.
The family grew up, and grandparents grew old. It became hard to keep up the garden, so they made it a little smaller. There was still plenty to eat from the garden and lovely flowers to enjoy.
Then one summer when Grandpa was eighty-nine years old, all he could do was watch from his lawn chair as the vegetables grew and the roses bloomed. Summer slowly faded, and Grandpa died before it was time to bring in the harvest.
It was a lonely winter for Grandma. She sat near the window, looking out at the yard and wondering if she could plant a garden in the spring. When spring came, she planted only a little garden.
One sunny day in the early summer, Grandma heard a commotion (骚动) in the front yard and looked out the window to see a frightening sight. A huge swarm of bees filled the air between two tall trees. The buzzing sound was very loud.
The bees made their way into a hole up in one of the trees. Before long, every one of those bees had disappeared into its new home. During the next few days, the bees were busy minding their own business. Grandma could always see a few bees buzzing in and out around the opening high in the tree. Before long, she decided the bees weren’t bothering anyone, so she didn’t give them another thought.
That summer, Grandma’s little garden grew and grew. The neighbors would stop to admire the huge crop of vegetables and puzzle over their own gardens weren’t doing well.
One day, Grandma’s brother Frank visited from Arizona. As Grandma made Frank a delicious lunch of squash cakes and homemade applesauce, she told him the story about the swarm of bees. Frank said, “In Arizona, the farmers often hired beekeepers to set up beehives near their fields. The bees pollinated (授粉) the crops and helped them to grow.”