The Woods-Rider

by Frank Lillie Pollock

Joe and Sam started on their voyage a day before the steamboat was expected, in order to arrive first with the supplies. But the boat came unexpectedly early; she passed the flatboat halfway down the river, and Joe waved back to his cousins leaning over the rail of the high deck. Bob and Carl were waiting for him at the mouth of the bayou, and they all poled and rowed the heavy craft up to the sloping shore where Old Dick’s cabin stood.

Apparently nobody had been there since their own last visit. The bees were flying freely. Alice had already inspected them and was eager to begin work.

“But the first thing to do is to fix up a place to live in,” she said. “And we can’t do anything till we clear these bees out of the cabin.”

Carl undertook the job. Well veiled and gloved, he carefully cut down the combs of the colony hanging on the ceiling, so carefully that he did not shake off the clustering bees. As he removed them he placed them in an old empty gum, finally carrying it outside and placing it near the old entrance through the wall, which he plugged up. By another day the bees would discover that their old home was outside instead of inside the cabin. By removing a board he was able to apply similar treatment to the swarm lodged inside the wall; and the one in the cupboard was easily handled. He simply pried the cupboard off the wall without opening it and carried it outside. But the colony in the chimney could not be reached, and much against his will, he was forced to destroy it by lighting a fire on the hearth and smoking it out, afterwards poking down the combs with a stick. Most of the flying bees escaped, and the next day he found a disconsolate cluster of them hanging on the outside of the chimney. Climbing on the roof he brushed them into a sack and poured them into one of the living gums.

Meanwhile Bob had been nailing wire gauze over the window to make it bee and mosquito-proof, and he repaired the door. Alice set to work at the interior with the broom. Sam and Joe were carrying lumber and outfit up from the flatboat, and the hillside was a busy place. The boat was unloaded, but daylight ended before they had time to put things in order, and they knocked off work for that day. With Sam as assistant cook, Alice fried bacon and eggs and made cornbread and coffee; they had brought butter and preserved peaches with them, and in the course of evicting the bees Carl had acquired several large chunks of honeycomb. It was dark and queer-flavored, and the expert apiarists did not think much of it, but Sam appreciated it hugely and ate most of it in the retired spot where he went away to devour his own supper. After the meal was over he brought water, washed up all the dishes, and restored order. Negro labor was a luxury to Alice, and Sam enjoyed the situation no less.

Apparently nobody had been there since their own last visit

“Dis here’s de life for me, Mr. Joe!” he whispered confidentially, sticky with honey. “Dis here bee bizness is a mighty fine stunt, yes-suh, it shorely is!”

Alice made up a bed for herself on the floor of the cabin that night, and the other members of the party disposed themselves as comfortably as they could on the ground outside. By another night they expected to have things more suitably arranged, and when the next day came to an end great things had indeed been effected.

The cabin had been well cleaned out, with a cot, a set of shelves, and a rough table built for Alice’s use. Adjoining the building Sam had put up a large shed, supported by poles, roofed ingeniously with a thatch of pine-boughs, broad palmetto-leaves, and Spanish moss which he guaranteed would turn water. Under this shelter they stowed the miscellaneous lumber and outfit, and here, too, the boys arranged their own sleeping-place, counting that it would be cooler than the little cabin. Sam was berthed at one end and the white boys at the other, on rough cots of boards and poles, raised two feet from the ground to keep off the snakes and red-bugs. They were high enough above the bayou to prevent mosquitoes from being very troublesome, unless a wind blew the wrong way.