A WINGED INVASION
After this humiliating chastisement the great eagle flew no more over Red
Fox’s lookout, but went sailing down his ravine a good half-mile before
mounting to cross the ridge. The young foxes, relieved from the only
peril that had ever seriously threatened them, played now with perfect
freedom all about their high, secluded demesne, and grew visibly from day
to day, as the ardent Ringwaak spring grew into summer. By the time June
came in, and all the world spread out below the lookout had grown to a
sea of vivid greens shading off into shadowy purples toward the sky-line,
the puppies were almost able to take care of themselves, and were making
rapid progress with their hunting lessons under the careful guidance of
their mother. They were lively and impudent youngsters, restless,
inquisitive, and given to taking reckless liberties with their
self-contained little mother. Of one creature alone did they stand in
awe, and that was Red Fox, who hardly seemed aware of their existence as
long as no danger threatened them.
One day about mid-June, however, there came a danger against which all
Red Fox’s strength and craft were powerless. It was about eleven o’clock,
of a hot, sweet day when the only breeze that stirred was a scented air
caressing the bare summit of the ridge. It was as if the fields, and
woods, and gardens, sleeping in the broad sun, breathed up all their
savours of balsam fir, buckwheat and clover gratefully to the sky. About
the den mouth, in the shadow, lay the mother and the puppies, stretched
out in lax and secure abandon; while Red Fox, just a couple of feet below
the top of his lookout, lay in a patch of tiny shade and got all the
coolness to be found this side of Ringwaak.
About this time, down in Jabe Smith’s garden in the valley, there was an
expectant excitement among the bees. Jabe was the possessor of three
hives,—old-fashioned box affairs, one white, one light blue, and one
yellow, so painted with the idea of helping the bees to recognize their
respective abodes. About the thresholds of the blue hive and the white
hive hung a few slender festoons of bees, driven out by the heat, while
in the doorways a double line of toilers stood with heads down and
swiftly whirring wings, ventilating the waxen treasures and the precious
brood combs within. From each of these doorways extended, slanting
upward, a diverging stream, the diligent gatherers of honey and pollen,
going and coming upon their fragrant business.
But from the doorway of the yellow hive went no stream of busy workers.
Instead of that, almost all the colony, except the faithful members who
were occupied in feeding the larvæ, or ventilating and cleaning the
combs, were gathered in glistening dark clusters over the front of the
hive. The front was covered, to a depth of an inch or more,
three-quarters of the way up, and from the ledge before the entrance hung
a huge inverted cone of bees, clinging firmly together. The hive was
about to swarm. It had prospered, and multiplied, and grown overfull.
There were throngs of young workers, moreover, just ready to emerge full
grown from their cells and take up the business and duties of the hive.
It was time for a migration. It was time that a strong colony should go
forth, to leave room for the newcomers about to appear, and to carry the
traditions of sweetness, order, and industry to other surroundings.
Meanwhile nothing but the most necessary hive-work could go on, for every
one was athrill with expectation. Even Jabe Smith, watching from the
other side of the garden fence, was keenly expectant. He looked for a
very fine swarm from that populous commonwealth; and he had a nice new
hive, pale pink outside and fresh rubbed with honey-water inside, to
offer to the emigrants as their new home.
Presently there was a louder buzzing within the yellow hive, and an
electric shock went through the waiting clusters outside. Among the combs
might be heard a series of tiny, angry squeaks, as the queen bee sought
to sting to death her young rivals still imprisoned in their waxen cells,
and was respectfully but firmly restrained by her attendants. Foiled in
these amiable intentions, the long, slim, dark queen at last rushed
excitedly to the door, darted out through the clusters, and sprang into
the air. In a moment, like foam before a great wind, the black clusters
melted away; and the air above the bean-patch and the currant-bushes was
suddenly thick with whirling, wildly humming bees, the migrating queen at
their centre.
[Illustration: “A DARK CLUSTER BEGAN TO FORM.”]
Attenuated to the transparency almost of a cloud, yet held together by a
strange cohesion, like a nebula soon to condense into a world, the swarm,
revolving about its own mystic centre, moved slowly across the garden,
across the blue-flowered flax-field, and halted, enveloping a wide-limbed
apple-tree. Jabe Smith, who had followed at a discreet distance, was
delighted at this, because an accessible, low-growing tree like the apple
made the hiving of the swarm an easy task.
Yes, the swarm was settling in the apple-tree. Near the base of one of
the main limbs a dark cluster began to form. Rapidly it grew, the
encircling cloud as rapidly shrinking. Soon it was as large as a
water-bucket. The humming, revolving nebula had condensed, and hung, a
new world, in the firmament of apple-green shade.
The moment the swarm was thoroughly settled, Jabe Smith came hurrying
across the field with the new hive, a short ladder, and some rope.
Planting the ladder carefully against the trunk, he climbed into the tree
with the hive, lowered it just over the cluster of bees, and roped it
securely in that position. All his movements were firm, slow, gentle, and
confident—such movements as the bees seem to understand and trust. When
he had the hive fixed to his satisfaction, so that the swarm could not
fail to perceive what a convenient and attractive home it would make, he
descended. A few bees had hummed about his head inquiringly. Several had
alighted on his bare hands and face. But not one had offered to sting.
The gaunt backwoodsman was _persona grata_ to the bees.
In at least nine cases out of ten, Jabe Smith’s just expectations would
have been realized. The bees would soon have moved up from the apple-tree
limb to the cool, sweet, dark cavity above them, and taken possession.
Then, Jabe would have covered the hive with a sheet, for further privacy,
and left the swarm alone till evening. After dark he would have undone
the rope, softly lowered the hive, fitted it to its floor,—a square of
smoothed board with hooks at the sides,—and carried the swarm to its
waiting stand beside the other hives, where it would have settled down to
its business of making honey and increasing its population.
But this swarm, as it chanced, was one with a prearranged plan which it
would not be seduced from carrying out. Every now and then the keeper of
bees comes across such a swarm, obstinate explorers and pioneers,
determined to throw off the ancient domination of man. A few bees did,
indeed, crawl up into the empty hive and taste the sweets with which it
had been flavoured. But all at once the swarm rose. The cluster
melted,—and the swarm was again revolving in the air. With bitter
disappointment, but knowing himself helpless to prevent, Jabe leaned on
the snake fence, and watched the whirling cloud drift off, higher and
higher, toward the woods and the ragged slope. Long before it was
half-way up the hillside he had lost sight of it, and had turned back
regretfully to his hoeing. He knew very well it was useless to pursue
that high-flying swarm, which had evidently sent out explorers some days
ahead and chosen itself a new dwelling-place in the deep of the wilds.
The day being such a windless one, and clear, with no menace of storm, it
was safe for the migrating bees to undertake a long journey. In a little
while Red Fox, from his post of vantage, saw the strange cloud moving
slowly up the slopes, well above the tree-tops. He knew it was a swarm of
bees; for more than once, from a secure covert, he had watched such a
swarm with keen interest and curiosity. But he had no apprehensions as he
gazed down on the strange flight. He had never seen any bees about these
high regions of the ridge, and he felt sure the swarm was bound for some
hollow tree or crevice below him. Had he known, however, that during the
past few days a few straggling bees had visited the ridge top, exploring
the dry recesses, he might have viewed the approaching flight with a
certain anxiety to emphasize his interest. But had he known that these
tiny, solitary, insignificant explorers had even visited his own den, and
found it a marvel of security alike from wet and frost and foes, his
philosophic confidence would have vanished. Nearer and nearer came the
whirling cloud, larger and larger, blacker and blacker, till now its
humming thrilled Red Fox’s ears. Before he realized how rapid was its
flight, the skirmishers of the vanguard were buzzing about his ears. He
concluded that they were going to cross the ridge. For a second or two he
crouched flat. Then he felt a hot sting on his ear. Too wise to
retaliate, he shook his head, slipped nervously down the rock, and dodged
into the burrow. The little hollow before the entrance was already
humming with the fringes of the swarm; so the mother fox and the young
ones understood at once that there was trouble afoot and that it was time
to run to earth. The young ones, however, as they followed their mother,
obeyed their natural impulse to snap at these impertinent flies that were
buzzing about their ears. They promptly got stung, of course, and darted
in with a chorus of yelps, their pretty brushes drooping in
consternation.
[Illustration: “NEARER AND NEARER CAME THE WHIRLING CLOUD.”]
Once inside, the whole family crouched down behind Red Fox, wondering
apprehensively what was going to happen. They were not left long in
suspense. Red Fox saw the entrance darken, as the bees gathered thickly
down to it. He felt the first intruders crawling in his fur. He felt two
or three stings. The puppies began to yelp again. With a sharp bark,
which was a signal to his mate to follow with the young ones, he darted
out into the daylight, his red coat literally black with the invaders.
Still, he was too wise to fight back; and, as the bees were mostly full
of honey, and not in particularly warlike mood, he got but two or three
more stings.
Close at his heels came the puppies; and he was careful not to run so
fast as to leave them behind. At the tail of the procession came the slim
mother, so covered with the crawling black invaders as to be almost
unrecognizable for a fox. Quick to learn, she was copying her mate’s
self-restraint, and making no fight; and few of the bees, therefore, were
attacking her. She had some stings, to be sure; but most of the bees that
were crawling over her were perfectly good-natured, and treated her
merely as something convenient to light upon. The puppies, however, were
not faring so well. True to their fighting pedigree, they snapped and bit
at their assailants as they ran, yelping with pain and astonishment, but
not cowed even in this moment of disastrous retreat.
At a few paces from the mouth of the den the majority of the bees that
blackened the fur of Red Fox and his mate arose into the air and hummed
off eagerly to rejoin their queen in the hole. But those upon the rash
puppies, thoroughly stirred up, stuck to the battle. Red Fox understood
the situation; and, fortunately for the youngsters, knew just what to do.
Darting among the rocks, he led the unhappy procession to the nearest
juniper thicket, and plunged straight into it. When the family emerged on
the other side of the thicket, their coats had all resumed their proper
colour; for few indeed were the bees that succeeded in resisting the firm
and harsh brushes of the juniper. Many of them were killed, and many more
maimed; while for some minutes the thicket was all a-buzz with those who
had escaped injury in the unceremonious brushing.
From the juniper thicket Red Fox led down through a thick blueberry
scrub, and thence through every kind of brushy bush he saw, till there
was not a bee left in the fur of any member of the family. All the while
he was heading for the little hillside meadow by the brook, where he was
wont to catch mice. Along the edges of the brook, between grass and
water, was a space of moist and naked earth. Here he taught the unhappy
young ones to nose and wallow and roll themselves, till the cooling and
healing soil was plastered all over them and rubbed deep into the very
roots of their fur. Assuaging the fiery anguish and drawing the acrid
poison from every tiny wound, the wet earth did its work, and after a
time the sufferers felt better. Then they spent hours rolling in the
sweet grass to clean and dry their fur; and when this was accomplished,
there was the meadow, with all the mice, to afford them an easy meal.
Just above the meadow, where the earth sloped upward and became dry and
sandy, they found an old woodchuck burrow; and here, for the moment, they
took up their abode till a more satisfactory dwelling might be found.