III
THE LITTLE ARMY
Ben Gile shook his head. As his hair was long and white, and his hands moved with his head, just as if he were a lot of dried branches moving in the wind, it was enough to frighten little Betty. "Plagues of Egypt! Plagues of Egypt!" he kept muttering. Now, Betty had been to school a long time—I think it must have been as much as two whole years, which is a very long time for school and a very short time for climbing trees—now, Betty had been to school and knew better. She crept behind a big beech-tree, but she stuck her little head out and said, in a trembling voice:
"It was locusts, sir, wasn't it—and wild honey?"
Betty wasn't at all certain that any kind of honey could be a plague.
"It was locusts, child—yes, you're right," answered the old man. "Locusts it was; but you eat wild honey."
Betty came out from behind the tree and whispered, "You eat them both?"
"So men did in the Bible," said Ben Gile, and washing his sugar-pails, and putting his maple sugar camp—a very sweet place for a little girl to be when there are still piles of maple sugar packed away on the shelves—in order for the summer.