m half the honey! So I
came to git you, for of course I knowed that as noble a boy as I've
heered you be wouldn't act so pesky covetous as that."

Getting the tin pails, the kettle and the brimstone together with an axe
and a compass at the old man's cabin, we went out across the fields and
the pastures north of the Wilbur farm to the borders of the woods
through which old Hughy wanted to follow the bees.

A line of stakes that old Hughy had set up across the open land marked
the direction in which the bees had flown to the forest. After taking
our bearings from them by compass we entered the woods and went on from
one large tree to another. Now and again we came to an old tree that
looked as if it were hollow near the top. On every such tree old Hughy
knocked loudly with the axe, crying, "Hark, boy! Hark! D'ye hear 'em?
D'ye see any come out up thar?" At times he drew forth his "specs" and,
having adjusted them, peeped and peered upward. Like his ears, the old
man's eyes were becoming too defective for bee hunting.

In that manner we went on for at least a mile, until at last we came to
Swift Brook, a turbulent little stream in a deep, rocky gully. Our
course led across the ravine, and while we were hunting for an easy
place to descend I espied bees flying in and out of a woodpecker's hole
far up toward the broken top of a partly decayed basswood tree.

"Here they are!" I shouted, much elated.

Old Hughy couldn't see them even with his glasses on, they were so high
and looked so small. He knocked on the trunk of the tree, and when I
told him that I could see bees pouring out and distinctly hear the hum
of those in the tree he was satisfied that I had made no mistake.

When bee hunters trace a swarm to a high tree they usually fell the
tree; to that task the old man and I now set ourselves. The basswood was
fully three feet in diameter, and leaned slightly toward the brook. In
spite of the slant, old Hughy thought that by proper cutting the tree
could be made to fall on our side of the gully instead of across it. He
threw off his old coat and set to work, but soon stopped short and began
rubbing his shoulder and groaning, "Oh, my rheumatiz, my rheumatiz!
O-o-oh, how it pains me!"

That may have been partly pretense, intended to make me take the axe;
for he was a wily old fellow. However that may be, I took it and did a
borrowed boy's best to cut the scarfs as he directed, but hardly
succeeded. I toiled a long tim