The hands of the little clock on Gray-beard's desk indicated the hour of two. The midsummer's sun hurled its rays with unrelenting force to the earth, and the wind, as though consenting to the attack, withheld its refreshing breezes. All the windows of our school-room were thrown wide open, and the hum of busy insects and the occasional cry of a bird were the only sounds that relieved the monotonous stillness outside.
A class, with Warren at the head, was on the floor. The girl at the foot was reading in a tone that made it difficult to resist the drowsiness that attacked every one in the room. She came to a hard word, and, according to our custom, she spelled it. Gray-beard, who was sitting with eyes shut, pronounced it for her through a suppressed yawn. A few more words brought her to the end of the paragraph.
A long pause followed; Warren stood with book uplifted, but was gazing intently on something outside. The teacher, recovering from an overbalancing nod, opened his eyes slowly, and lazily called, "Warren!" The boy did not stir. Brush and I looked up from our desk, and shuffled our feet to attract his attention. "Warren!" again called Gray-beard, in a louder tone. Still there was no response.
Brush tore a fly-leaf out of his book, rolled it hastily into a ball, and threw it at Warren's head, but missed it.
Gray-beard turned in his chair, his eyes rested upon the boy, who was still looking fixedly out of the window. Then he rose, stepped softly up to Warren, seized him by the shoulders and shook him violently, saying, "Are you asleep?"
"Swarming!" rang out the last word of the sentence which Warren was making a desperate effort to utter.
Gray-beard, following the eyes of the lad, looked out of the window, "Quick, boys, to the dining-room, take anything you can make a noise with!" he exclaimed, as he sprang to the door, threw it open with a bang and disappeared.
We leaped over desks, and tumbled over each other as we rushed with impetuous haste to the dining-room. Brush caught up an enormous tin pan, Edwin a milk pail, and I the school triangle; the rest of the boys took tin pans and plates, or whatever they could lay their hands on, and we all ran out into the yard. Warren was already following the humming black cloud, ringing the school-bell with all his might. We caught up with him, and began beating on the tin pans with our knuckles, keeping up a constant yelling like a lot of savages. The noise we made was enough to drive the bees and ourselves insane. It was bedlam let loose. On we went through the barnyard, up the hill, and into the woods, closely following the flying black mass. Three boys carrying small mirrors kept throwing flashes of light into the swarm.
The bees made a straight line for a tall oak, hovered over the end of a high branch, and then settled on it. We gathered around the tree, and continued our unearthly noise until Gray-beard, with a box and a saw on his shoulder, and a coil of rope on his arm, came up puffing and all in a perspiration.