A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

"Do you suppose there's a swarm of bees up there in the loft?" Addison exclaimed. "I'll bet there is," he added, "a runaway swarm that's gone in at the gable end outside, where the clapboards are off."

He climbed up on the high pulpit and with the handle of the broom rapped on the ceiling. We immediately heard a deep humming sound overhead, and so many bees flew down through the cracks that Addison descended in haste. We retreated toward the door.

"What are we going to do when Senator Hamlin and all the people come?" I asked.

"I don't know!" Addison muttered, perplexed. "That old loft is roaring full of bees. We've got to do something with them, or there won't be any speaking here to-day."

We thought of stopping up the cracks, but there were too many of them to make that practicable. To dislodge the swarm from the loft, too, would be equally difficult, for the more we disturbed the bees the more furious they would become.

At last we thought of the old Squire's bee smoker with which he had sometimes subdued angry swarms that were bent on stinging.

"You drive home as fast as you can and get the smoker and a ladder," Addison said, "and I'll stay here to watch the fire in the stove."

So I drove old Nance home at her best pace. When I got there I looked for the old Squire to tell him of our trouble, but found that he had already driven to the village to meet Senator Hamlin and the other speakers of the afternoon. Grandmother and the girls were too busy getting ready for the distinguished guests, who were to have supper with us, to give much heed to my story of the bees. So I got the smoker, the box of elm-wood punk and a ladder about fourteen feet long, and with this load drove back at top speed to the meetinghouse.

Addison had eaten his share of the luncheon that we had brought, and while I devoured mine he pottered with the smoker; neither of us understood very well how it worked. There are now several kinds of bee smokers on the market; but the old Squire had contrived this one by making use of an old-fashioned bellows to puff the smoke from out of a two-quart tin can in which the punk wood was fired by means of a live coal. The nose of the bellows was inserted at one end of the can; and into a hole at the other end the old gentleman had soldered a short tin tube through which he could blow the smoke in any direction he desired. In order not to burn his fingers he had inclosed both bellows and can in supporting strips of wood; thus he could hold the contrivance in one hand and squeeze 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.