"Have they settled?" he asked, shading his eyes and looking up into the tree.
"Yes, there they are," answered Brush, pointing to the writhing black mass on the branch.
"Who can climb?" said Gray-beard, looking around among the boys. No one answered. After a while Edwin spoke up, "Lester climb tree like wild-cat."
Lester turned and looked daggers at him. Brush and I nudged each other and giggled. Edwin was playing a joke on Lester.
"Come," said Gray-beard, "there's no time to be lost." And he proceeded to tie the end of the rope around the waist of Lester, who had not recovered from his astonishment and was given no time to put in a disclaimer to the title of climber.
Gray-beard lifted the lad up as high as he could, then the boy began to climb. He went up slowly but surely, dragging the rope after him. Edwin shouted words of encouragement. "That's good, go ahead!" he would exclaim as the climber made now and again six inches or so.
"Wait till I get down, I show you!" Lester called back. Then Edwin turned to us and grinned.
The limb upon which the bees had settled was at last reached; the boy pulled up the hand-saw that was tied to the other end of the rope. He looked down at us with mischief in his face, then straddled the branch with his face toward the trunk of the tree and began to saw. Gray-beard, seeing this, called up in great excitement, "Stop! stop! Lester, stop! Turn the other way." The boy, having had his fun, turned, and, moving as near to the bees as he dared, began sawing slowly until the branch hung down, then he severed it. It did not fall because before he began to saw he had tied one end of the rope near to the bees, and had fastened the other part near to the place where he was sitting, so that he was able gradually to lower the bees to the ground.
We did not know that anything had happened to Lester until he came down, then we saw that he was stung on the eyebrow and his face was swollen. Brush moistened a bit of earth and smeared it around the injured part to prevent further swelling, but it did no good.
Gray-beard put the box over the bees and began pounding the top, "Look under there, Frank, and see if they are going up," he said; "if the queen goes, they will all go."