e the bellows with the other.

As we were unfamiliar with the contrivance, we both had to climb the
ladder--one to hold the can and the other to pump the bellows. We lost
so much time in getting started that when at last we were ready to begin
operations people had already begun to arrive. They asked us all sorts
of questions and bothered us a good deal, but we kept right on at our
task. The smoker was working well, and we felt greatly encouraged. Those
rings of black vapor drove the bees back and, as the smoke rose through
the cracks, prevented them from coming down again.

We were still up that ladder by the pulpit, puffing smoke at those
cracks, when the old Squire and Uncle Hannibal arrived, with Judge
Peters and the Hon. Hiram Bliss. The house was now full of people, and
they cheered the newcomers; there was not a little laughter and joking
when some one told the visiting statesmen that a swarm of bees was
overhead.

"Boys," Uncle Hannibal cried, "do you suppose there's much honey up
there?"

He asked the Squire whether Egyptian bees were good honey gatherers, and
laughed heartily when the old gentleman told him what robbers they were
and how savagely they stung.

"Judge!" Uncle Hannibal cried to Judge Peters. "That's what's the matter
with our Maine politics. The Egyptians are robbing us of our liberties!"

That idea seemed to stick in his mind, for later, when he began his
address, he referred humorously to several prominent leaders of the
opposing party as bold, bad Egyptians. "We shall have to smoke them
out," he said, laughing. "And I guess that the voters of this district
are going to do it, and the boys, too," he continued, pointing up to us
on the ladder.

He had refused to speak from the pulpit, and so stood on the floor of
the house--in what he described as his proper place; the pulpit, he
said, was no place for politics.

After so many years I cannot pretend to remember all that Uncle Hannibal
said; besides, my attention was largely engrossed in directing the
nozzle of the smoker at those cracks between the laths. Addison and I
were badly crowded on the ladder, and the small rungs were not
comfortable to stand on. Now and then, in spite of our efforts, an
Egyptian got through the cracks and dived down near Uncle Hannibal's
head.

"A little more smoke up there, boys!" he would cry, pretending to dodge
the insect. "I thought I heard an Egyptian then, and it sounded a little
like Brother Morrill