Taking a pencil, he began to figure on the board wall.
“Fifteen thousand pounds. And at sixteen cents a pound—” he ciphered again—“that makes two-thousand four hundred dollars. And we’ve already shipped a little less than three thousand dollars’ worth. Over five thousand dollars, Alice, at the lowest reckoning! Hurrah for the swamp bees!”
“The pizen bees!” said Alice, laughing. “Yes, I hardly hoped for anything better. It’ll be a nice lump to divide, even after we pay back what you put into it.”
“Pay back? I don’t want you to pay back anything,” Joe protested. “That was an investment, and I’m drawing my dividends.”
Alice laid down the hot knife that sent a hissing spurt of steam from the tip of its blade.
“We never could have got through without your investment, Joe,” she said earnestly. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s turned out right. It was mostly on your account that I was anxious. But you’re not going to stay here. You’re going back South when the season is over, and—”
“I hope we’ll all go South,” said Joe. “Sam is going to look up a lot more gums for us, and maybe we can repeat this deal—without any river pirates next time. Anyhow, we can start a yard of bees down there, and ship up a lot by express every spring, as we first thought of doing. We’ll get together the biggest apiary in the North—a thousand colonies, maybe. I’m not going to ride the turpentine woods any more.”
He stopped, and suddenly put one hand over Alice’s honey-smeared hand on the edge of the extracting-box.
“Don’t you see, Alice,” he added, “that I want to stay around where you are—just as long as you want to have me?”
Alice hesitated, flushing; then impulsively she put her other hand over Joe’s brown and sticky one.