Lester
The hands of the little clock on Gray-beard's desk indicated the hour
of two. The midsummer's sun hurled its rays with unrelenting force to
the earth, and the wind, as though consenting to the attack, withheld
its refreshing breezes. All the windows of our school-room were thrown
wide open, and the hum of busy insects and the occasional cry of a bird
were the only sounds that relieved the monotonous stillness outside.
A class, with Warren at the head, was on the floor. The girl at the
foot was reading in a tone that made it difficult to resist the
drowsiness that attacked every one in the room. She came to a hard
word, and, according to our custom, she spelled it. Gray-beard, who
was sitting with eyes shut, pronounced it for her through a suppressed
yawn. A few more words brought her to the end of the paragraph.
A long pause followed; Warren stood with book uplifted, but was gazing
intently on something outside. The teacher, recovering from an
overbalancing nod, opened his eyes slowly, and lazily called, "Warren!"
The boy did not stir. Brush and I looked up from our desk, and shuffled
our feet to attract his attention. "Warren!" again called Gray-beard,
in a louder tone. Still there was no response.
Brush tore a fly-leaf out of his book, rolled it hastily into a ball,
and threw it at Warren's head, but missed it.
Gray-beard turned in his chair, his eyes rested upon the boy, who was
still looking fixedly out of the window. Then he rose, stepped softly
up to Warren, seized him by the shoulders and shook him violently,
saying, "Are you asleep?"
"Swarming!" rang out the last word of the sentence which Warren was
making a desperate effort to utter.
Gray-beard, following the eyes of the lad, looked out of the window,
"Quick, boys, to the dining-room, take anything you can make a noise
with!" he exclaimed, as he sprang to the door, threw it open with a
bang and disappeared.
We leaped over desks, and tumbled over each other as we rushed with
impetuous haste to the dining-room. Brush caught up an enormous tin
pan, Edwin a milk pail, and I the school triangle; the rest of the
boys took tin pans and plates, or whatever they could lay their hands
on, and we all ran out into the yard. Warren was already following
the humming black cloud, ringing the school-bell with all his might.
We caught up with him, and began beating on the tin pans with our
knuckles, keeping up a constant yelling like a lot of savages. The
noise we made was enough to drive the bees and ourselves insane. It was
bedlam let loose. On we went through the barnyard, up the hill, and
into the woods, closely following the flying black mass. Three boys
carrying small mirrors kept throwing flashes of light into the swarm.
The bees made a straight line for a tall oak, hovered over the end of a
high branch, and then settled on it. We gathered around the tree, and
continued our unearthly noise until Gray-beard, with a box and a saw on
his shoulder, and a coil of rope on his arm, came up puffing and all
in a perspiration.
"Have they settled?" he asked, shading his eyes and looking up into the
tree.
"Yes, there they are," answered Brush, pointing to the writhing black
mass on the branch.
"Who can climb?" said Gray-beard, looking around among the boys. No
one answered. After a while Edwin spoke up, "Lester climb tree like
wild-cat."
Lester turned and looked daggers at him. Brush and I nudged each other
and giggled. Edwin was playing a joke on Lester.
"Come," said Gray-beard, "there's no time to be lost." And he proceeded
to tie the end of the rope around the waist of Lester, who had not
recovered from his astonishment and was given no time to put in a
disclaimer to the title of climber.
Gray-beard lifted the lad up as high as he could, then the boy began to
climb. He went up slowly but surely, dragging the rope after him. Edwin
shouted words of encouragement. "That's good, go ahead!" he would
exclaim as the climber made now and again six inches or so.
"Wait till I get down, I show you!" Lester called back. Then Edwin
turned to us and grinned.
The limb upon which the bees had settled was at last reached; the boy
pulled up the hand-saw that was tied to the other end of the rope.
He looked down at us with mischief in his face, then straddled the
branch with his face toward the trunk of the tree and began to saw.
Gray-beard, seeing this, called up in great excitement, "Stop! stop!
Lester, stop! Turn the other way." The boy, having had his fun, turned,
and, moving as near to the bees as he dared, began sawing slowly until
the branch hung down, then he severed it. It did not fall because
before he began to saw he had tied one end of the rope near to the
bees, and had fastened the other part near to the place where he was
sitting, so that he was able gradually to lower the bees to the ground.
We did not know that anything had happened to Lester until he came
down, then we saw that he was stung on the eyebrow and his face was
swollen. Brush moistened a bit of earth and smeared it around the
injured part to prevent further swelling, but it did no good.
Gray-beard put the box over the bees and began pounding the top, "Look
under there, Frank, and see if they are going up," he said; "if the
queen goes, they will all go."
I crouched to the ground and looked into the box; there was great
activity and noise. "I think they are going up," I said.
Suddenly the pounding on the box ceased; I heard an outcry and a groan;
I looked up, and there was Gray-beard rolling on the ground. He was
badly stung in the face. Brush went to his assistance and painted his
wounds with mud. I went to the box and pounded as Gray-beard had done.
"Look under, Warren, and see what they are doing," I said.
Warren put his head to the ground and looked, "I guess that old king
went up; they're all gone," he said; "I can't see them."
Having recaptured our bees, we securely fastened the box so that the
wind could not blow it over; we gathered up our pans, milk pails,
and bells and formed a homeward procession. Brush headed it, leading
Gray-beard, whose eyes were now both closed and bandaged with his white
handkerchief, and in this way we reached the Mission building.
The ladies and the school girls were waiting on the porch for our
return, and as we approached the gate a number called out, "How many of
you are stung?"
"Two!" cried the boys; "teacher and Lester."
When we were passing the girls on the porch to go to our quarters,
pretty little black-eyed Rosalie, my sweetheart, came up to me and
asked, "Frank, was you stung?"
"No; but the bees wouldn't go in the box for anybody but me," I
answered proudly.
"But I wish you was stung like Lester," she said; "his girl is telling
the rest of them all about it, and they think he's right smart because
he got stung."
Some of the big girls, overhearing this confidence, put their aprons up
to their faces to hide their laughter. The teachers never knew that
there were lovers among the pupils and that little romances were going
on right under their eyes.
Gray-beard could not see us to bed that night, so the superintendent
took his place.
"Good-night, boys, keep quiet and go to sleep," he said as he went
downstairs after he had heard us say our prayer.
"Warren, you've earned ten cents to-day," said Brush; "I think Lester
earned something too. I don't know how much it's going to be, but I'll
go and see the superintendent about it to-morrow."
"Say, Brush, I think that bee that stung Lester was a drone; that's why
his face is all swelled up," I said.
"Oh! go 'long!" he answered. "Whoever heard of a drone having a sting.
They have no sting, and they can't sting. It's only the working bees
that have a sting."
"But those drones are big fellows, two times as big as the working
bees. The superintendent showed me one when he was moving a swarm to a
new box in the bee house."
"They haven't any sting, though. There are three kinds of bees:
there's the queen, then there's the drone, and there's the working
bees. When the drones get too many, and eat too much, the working bees,
they get mad and they sting them to death."
"I think that work bee thought Lester was drone," remarked Edwin.
"Wait till I get well," threatened Lester; "I'll show you drone!"
"What is the queen?" asked Warren. "And what does it do?"
"Why a queen is a female king," explained Brush, who was authority on a
great many things. "She doesn't do anything but sit on a big throne and
tell people what to do. If they don't mind her, she makes her soldiers
cut their heads off. It's the same with bees: they have a queen,--I
don't think she sits on a throne, but she tells the rest of the bees
what to do; and if they don't mind her, she gets up and goes; then all
the rest have to follow her, because they won't know what to do unless
she tells them. That's what that old queen did to-day."
"Why don't the 'Mericans have a king?" asked Edwin. "They got a
President, but I don't think he's big like a king."
"They had one," said Brush; "but they didn't like him, because he put
a terrible big tax on tea. The 'Mericans are awfully fond of tea, and
when they saw they'd have to pay the trader and the king, too, for
their tea, they got mad; and one night, when everybody was asleep, they
painted up like wild Indians, and they got into a boat and paddled
out to the tea ship and climbed in. They hollered and yelled like
everything, and scared everybody; then they spilted the tea into the
ocean."
"What did the old king do?" asked Lester.
"Well, he was hopping mad, and he lifted his great big sceptre, and he
went up to the man that brought the news, and knocked him over. Then he
walked up and down talking loud, and when he got tired he went to his
throne and sat down hard."
"What is a sceptre?" I asked, interrupting the story.
"Why, it's something like a war club; when the king tells people to do
things, he shakes it at them, so they will get scared and mind What he
says."
"I wouldn't mind him," said Warren; "I'd make a big sceptre for myself
and shake it at him."
"Well," continued Brush, "the old king sat still for a long time; then
he said to his soldiers, you go and fight those 'Mericans. And they
did fight, and had the Rev'lution. That war lasted eight years, and
the king's soldiers got licked. Then the 'Mericans made General George
Washington their President because he couldn't tell a lie."
The next morning Brush went to the superintendent's study, and soon
came out calling for Warren and Lester. Edwin and I waited under the
walnut-tree in front of the school. When the three came to us, they
showed us a bright silver dime and an equally bright quarter of a
dollar. According to our notions, Warren and his brother were rich, the
former having earned the reward offered for the discovery and report
of the swarming of the bees, and the latter earning the quarter by
climbing the tree on which the swarm had settled.
Brush announced to us that Lester and Warren had been detailed to go
after the mail. The post-office was in the trader's store three miles
away from the school, and boys were always very glad to be sent on this
errand.
In the afternoon, when school was out, Brush went up to the
superintendent's room to borrow the spy-glass, while Edwin and I went
in search of Lester and Warren, who had slipped away from us. We could
not find them, so we returned to the school-room, where we met Brush,
and we all went up to the belfry.
The Indians were at work in their fields, and we each took the glass
in turn to see if we could recognize our friends. Suddenly Edwin said,
"Something's going to happen; look at those girls."
Two girls were going through the yard arm in arm, now and again
glancing over their shoulders toward the boys' play-ground. They
reached the farthest corner of the yard, then turned and looked along
the dividing fence. Two boys sauntered towards them on the other side,
following a narrow path.
"There's Lester and Warren," said Brush; "they're up to something, keep
your eyes upon them."
We did. The four met at the corner, sat down and appeared to be talking
to each other. When they had been there for some time, the boys handed
through the palings to each of the girls a brown parcel.
"I see now why those boys wanted to go after the mail this morning,"
said Brush.
The girls arose and walked toward the house, opening their parcels,
and we saw through the spy-glass that they were eating candy. The boys
slowly returned, one following the other along the narrow path. Edwin
thrust his fingers into his mouth and whistled, imitating the cry of
the robin, which was the signal we five had adopted. The boys stopped
suddenly as the sound reached them, and looked all around. Seeing no
one, they went on. Again Edwin whistled; then I touched the bell very
lightly with the clapper. The boys looked up to the belfry; but we kept
out of sight.
At breakfast the next morning the two girls appeared at the table with
their hair neatly done up in bright-colored ribbons. Edwin leaned over
toward Lester and said in a whisper, "Your girl's got a right pretty
ribbon!"
"Yours hasn't got any!" retorted Lester.