d went on. I know about
plowing, and I once plowed a small blackberry-patch that was mostly
roots, and nearly swore my teeth loose in the half a day it took me. But
that had been nothing to this, and this was continual. I decided that
nothing could feaze Luther Merrill.

Still, he was not absolute proof against bees. I have mentioned the
swarm between the floors of the old house, and in the course of the
morning Luther's plowing took him near the corner where it seems they
had their entrance. It was a bright, hot day and they were quite busy,
but not busy enough to prevent them from giving prompt attention to us
as we came along.

I was holding one handle of the plow at the moment, pretending to help,
when I noticed a peculiar high-pitched note close to my ear, and a
certain pungent "mad smell" which bees know how to make. Something told
me just then that I had business in the upper corner of the lot and I
set out to attend to it. Two of those bees came along. They hurried a
good deal--they had to, to keep up with me. I discouraged them as much
as possible with an earnest fanning or beating motion and sharp words. I
was not entirely successful. I felt something hot and sudden on the lobe
of one ear just as I dove beneath the bushes that draped the upper wall,
and I had an almost immediate sensation of its becoming hard and
pear-shaped.

I peered out presently to see what had become of Luther Merrill. He had
not basely deserted his team--he was too high-class for that, but he was
moving from the point of attack with as little delay as possible,
grasping the lines with one hand and pawing the air with the other. By
the time I reached him he was plowing in a rather remote corner, and he
had lost some of his beauty--one eye was quite closed. He said he would
plow down there by the house late in the evening, or on the next wet
day.

Luther plowed and harrowed and sowed for us--two fields of rye and
timothy mixed, to insure a future meadow, this on Westbury's advice. A
part of one field had great boulders in it, which he suggested we take
out. I said we would drop the boulders into the brook at intervals to
make the pretty falls it now lacked. Next morning, Luther Merrill came
with a heavy chain and a stone-boat (an immense sled without runners)
and for two happy days we reconstructed the world, dislocating and
hauling boulders that had not stirred since the ice age.

Luther was an expert at chaining out boulders, and h