“Oh, look! There he goes, running!” cried Laddie, pointing toward the peddler boy who was darting away into the woods as fast as he could go, followed by the cloud of bees.
CHAPTER XXV
THE HONEY TREE
The six little Bunkers paused a moment before leaving the picnic grounds, where so sad a happening as losing their lunch had occurred, and looked toward the peddler boy. He was certainly running as hard as he could to get away from the stinging insects.
“It serves him right for taking our lunch!” declared Rose, though perhaps she shouldn’t have said it.
“Do you s’pose the bees knew he took our things? And did they sting him because they like us and because Farmer Joel has bees like these bees?” asked Violet, looking at a honey insect perched on a flower. Violet seemed to think it best to ask as many questions at once as possible.
But no one took the trouble to answer them. Russ and Rose were anxious to get the smaller children out of the way of the bees.
“Come, children! We’ve got to hurry, just as Russ says,” said Rose.
“Is it goin’ to rain?” asked Mun Bun. Generally when there was a shower coming up he knew the need of haste.
“No, it isn’t going to rain,” said Russ. “If it did it would send the bees into shelter and they wouldn’t take after that boy.”
“Do you think they stung him much?” asked Rose.