“If the birds would only keep at the same cherry and finish it, instead of flying from one to another and taking a nip out of each,” said Natalie.
“Well, you see, they bite the ripe spot out of the cherry, and then fly to another good ripe mouthful. It is easier that way than trying to turn their heads around the cherry to eat the opposite side,” laughed Janet.
“Girls!” now shouted Natalie, making a quick dash at something about her head. “Do these horrid little yellow-jackets annoy you, too?”
“They are after the decayed cherries,” called a Scout.
“They are not yellow-jackets, are they? I thought they were hornets,” said another Scout.
“They’re both—there is a hornet, now—buzzing about my ear!” cried Janet.
At that very moment, a sharp scream from Natalie caused every girl to turn her head and see what had happened. In another moment a crash of branches and a flash of a body falling down through the leaves made several of the Scouts cry out in fright.
Natalie had been picking the cherries from the topmost branches, as she liked to sit up high and pelt the stones from the fruit she ate, down at the girls’ heads, to tease them. The hornets had a small nest in the top of the tree, but Natalie was not aware of that. As she called and laughed at her friends, the hornets began to grow excited, and when they found the annoyance failed to go away but came ever nearer their nest, they buzzed about and threatened in angry terms. Still Natalie paid no attention to what they said to her. She thought they wanted to feed on the rotten fruit, whereas they merely wished her to go and leave them in peace.
At last the disturbance was too much for one of the old hornets. He flew in circles about her head and scolded until his exasperation took form in the offensive. Natalie’s neck was a very advantageous spot and she could not see him when he lit on her collar and quickly crept up to the soft smooth skin in the nape of the neck.
Without further warning he drove in his dagger-point and Natalie screamed with pain. Forgetting that she was up in a tree, and must cling fast to the boughs, she suddenly put both hands to her neck. The natural result was, she fell down so quickly that her friends could not get to her assistance in time to do a thing.