A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

Luckily I still had hold of the hemlock limb and clung to it instinctively. For a moment I dangled there; then with a few convulsive efforts I succeeded in drawing myself to the trunk of the hemlock and getting my feet on a limb. Breathless, I now glanced downward and was terrified to see that in falling the basswood had carried away the lower branches of the hemlock and left no means of climbing down. If the trunk of the hemlock had been smaller I could have clasped my arms about it and slid down; but it was far too big round for that. In fact, to get down unassisted was impossible, and I was badly frightened. I suppose I was perched not more than thirty-five feet above the ground; but to me, glancing fearfully down on the rocks in the bed of the brook, the distance looked a hundred!

Moreover, the trunk of the basswood had split open when it struck, and all the bees were out. Clouds of them, rising as high as my legs, began paying their respects to me as the cause of their trouble. Luckily the veil kept them from my face and neck.

I could see old Hughy on the brink of the gully, staring across at me, open-mouthed, and in my alarm I called aloud to him to rescue me. He did not reply and seemed at a loss what to do.

I had started to climb higher into the shaggy top of the hemlock, to avoid the bees, when I heard some one call out, "Hello!" The voice sounded familiar and, glancing across the gully, I saw Willis Murch coming through the woods. Seeing us pass his house and knowing what we were in quest of, Willis, curious to know what success we would have, had followed us. He had lost track of us in the woods for a time, but had finally heard the basswood fall and then had found us.

Even at that distance across the gully I saw Willis's face break into a grin when he saw me perched in the hemlock. For the present, however, I was too much worried to be proud and implored his aid. He looked round a while, exchanged a few words with old Hughy and then hailed me.

"I guess we shall have to fell that hemlock to get you down," he shouted, laughing.

Naturally, I did not want that done.

"I shall have to go home for a long rope," he went on, becoming serious. "If we can get the end of a rope up there, you can tie it to a limb and then come down hand over hand. But I don't think our folks have a rope long enough; I may have to go round to the old Squire's for one."

Since old Hughy had no better plan to suggest, Willis set off on the run. As the distance was fully two miles, I had a long wait before me, and so I made myself as comfortable as I could on the limb and settled down to wait.

Old Hughy hobbled down into the gully with his kettle and tried to smother the bees by putting the brimstone close to the cleft in the tree trunk and setting it afire; but, although the fumes rose so pungently that I was obliged to hold my nose to keep from being smothered, the effect on the bees was not noticeable. Old Hughy then tried throwing water on them. The water was more efficacious than the brimstone, and before Willis returned the old man was able to cut out a section of the tree trunk and fill his two pails with the dripping combs—all of which I viewed not any too happily from aloft.