In Pastures Green

by Peter McArthur

With the celebration of Dominion Day this week, and Orange celebrations less than two weeks off, the air is full of athletic talk. Practising Marathon runners are to be seen every evening speeding along the country roads, and the merits of rival baseball pitchers are hotly contested. Scientific baseball now afflicts the country as well as the cities, and the "twirler" who has "a bundle of curves in his mitt" is as much of a hero just now as the successful candidate on the day after election. One local hero is said to squeeze the ball so hard that when he turns it loose on its erratic course it crosses the plate looking no bigger than a huckleberry. Every enterprising country paper now has its baseball reporter, who is as perfect a master of the necessary slang as was N. P. Caylor, who is said to have invented much of the current lingo, when reporting for The New York Herald. Personally he was meek and unobtrusive, but to read his reports one would imagine he had a voice like a fog-horn, and ought to be suppressed as a public nuisance. The reports of country matches now show as few runs as reports of the work of league teams, and the old-fashioned lover of excitement sighs for the days when the Longwood road boys held the pasture lot against all comers. In those days there were no score-cards, and the honest man who kept tally did it by making a notch with his jack-knife on the top rail of a snake fence for each run. Sometimes he worked his way along two panels before the game was over. While on this subject there is a fact to be noted that should make men who do the eminent thinking for the editorial pages walk humbly. The most popular daily papers are those whose sporting news is the fullest and most accurate. Let the editors-in-chief think of that

"In silence and alone
And weigh against a grain of sand the glory of a throne."

[JULY]

July 2.—For some reason I feel it in my bones that I am about due for a comprehensive stinging by the bees. It is not in the nature of things that my present immunity should last forever. As a boy I used blue clay mud and three kinds of leaves chewed together as a cure for bee stings just as often as any boy in the country. Bumble bees jabbed me with or without provocation. On one unforgettable occasion I accumulated twenty-seven yellow-jacket stings by jumping from the top of a log and putting a foot through their nest. One of these stings was on the bony spot back of my right ear, and in my personal annals of pain it takes the first place. In fact, my memory is well stocked with bee, wasp, hornet, and yellow-jacket stings, and yet for the past two years I have been meddling with bees without being stung once. This immunity dates from a day when several hundred thousand bees started to rob some stored honey and I started to head them off by trying to close the holes through which they were getting at it. Being somewhat excited I did not pay any attention to them when they lit on me, and by the time I got the holes closed bees were walking all over me. They were on my hands and face as well as on my clothes and I didn't get stung once. I have been told that when bees are robbing they are so intent on the work in hand that they never sting. Besides, I had not startled them by jumping and trying to brush them off. Anyway, since that experience, I have not been afraid of the bees and have moved among them unscathed, but it seems too good to last.

Day before yesterday the cry rose that the bees from the one hive which escaped winter before last were swarming. When I went out to look at them the air was full of bees, and they were humming like a thrashing machine. Presently they began to cluster on a branch of a spruce tree and I went back to the house to get a veil, coat, and gloves. Though I have been on good terms with the bees, I did not propose to take any unnecessary chances. But by the time I had equipped myself for the task I found that they were all going back into the parent hive. Evidently the queen had forgotten something. Her hat was not on straight or she was not satisfied with her travelling outfit. Anyway, she and her followers went back and the swarming was postponed for that day. After this manifestation the hive was carefully watched, and shortly before noon yesterday they swarmed again. This time they lit on a little plum tree about five feet high. As I had everything ready from the day before I was soon in shape to attend to the hiving. A white sheet was spread on the ground under the tree and a hive that had been well cleaned and provided with honey frames was placed at the edge of the sheet. Then I took the garden rake and shook the tree. The bees tumbled on the sheet and started for the hive, and for a few minutes it looked as if the operation were going to be successful. But after a while the bees that had entered the hive began to crawl out and cluster on the outside. Evidently the hive did not suit them. Perhaps they wanted better ventilation, open plumbing, and stationary bath-tubs. Modern bees are becoming so human that it is hard to satisfy them. I remember the day when bees were satisfied if you offered them a section of gum-tree with a couple of cross-bars in it, but now they turn up their noses at a hive made of planed and matched lumber, nicely painted and furnished with all the modern improvements. And this swarm seemed particularly nifty.

When it became evident that they were not going to accept the hive that had been offered I prepared another and placed it on the edge of the sheet. While this was being done the bees reassembled on the little tree and I shook them down again. By this time I was almost smothered by the veil, and as the bees showed no intention of attacking me I took it off and went at my work bare-faced and bare-handed. I shifted the new hive to a more attractive position and they investigated it as they did the first. It did not suit them at all and they all trooped back to the little tree. While this work was in progress the bees frequently lit on my hands and face but did not sting me, though they made me feel creepy. When they refused the two hives I was completely stumped and sent for an experienced bee-keeper to come and help me. He brought a hive that was filled with comb from which the honey had been extracted last season. He put this in the place of my first hive and shook the tree again. They began to cluster on the sheet at the root of the tree, so he took a broom and swept them gently towards the hive. This time they all went into the hive and everything seemed all right. But it was not. Nothing would satisfy those bees. They probably wanted a hive with a southern exposure and this one faced to the north. Anyway, a few minutes after being hived, they were all in the air and moving in a confused cloud towards the woods. Somebody yelled at me to throw water among them and I went after them with a pail of water and a dipper, but there was no result. Some one began pounding on a tin pan in old-fashioned style and there was racket and excitement to spare. I am told that making a noise does no good, but the fact remains that when the pounding on the pan was at its worst the bees settled on a fence post. We had a council of war and decided to try them with a double hive, empty frames below and the empty comb above. The sheet and hive were placed again and as the post could not be shaken the other man took a tin pail and whisk broom and dusted about a pailful of bees off the post. He poured them in front of the hive like so much corn, and though working without protection of any kind was not stung. This encouraged me so much that when I was asked to take the whisk and dust them off the other side of the post I did not flinch. Of course the fence was between me and the hive, and this gave me a sense of security that lasted until I stopped long enough to think and then I reflected that a wire fence does not amount to much as a protection from bees. But this swarm must have been unusually full-fed and good-natured, for with all the handling they got they did not sting any one. When they were all in the two-story hive we lifted it gently and put an excluder, a sheet of zinc with perforations that will admit workers but not the queen, on the bottom of the hive. This would make it impossible for the queen to get out and they will probably settle down and stay with us. I am told that in a day or so we can investigate and find out which story of the hive the bees have decided to occupy. Then we can remove the other and let them settle down to the job of collecting honey.

If all goes well there should be a great yield of honey in this district, for white clover has never been known to be so plentiful. Every pasture field is white with it, and on still hot afternoons the air is heavy with the sweet, cloying clover perfume. There are quite a number of farmers who are keeping bees as a side-line, and there are some professional bee-keepers in the district who devote their whole time to the work. Personally I think bee-keeping is just about the finest and most profitable form of light occupation that a man or woman can undertake. But perhaps when the time comes to get properly stung I'll change my mind. I know it is altogether against the tenets of the New Thought to even think of such things, for I am vibrating adverse suggestions into the ether and some day they may come home to roost. But with the memory of past stinging in my mind I cannot believe that I am permanently immune. And when I do get stung I feel sure that I can write a spirited article about it. In fact I feel that if I had been stung while hiving these bees there would be more ginger in this article. A bee sting stimulates the language faculty and gives even a man of sluggish disposition a marvellous command of effective words. I quite realise that if I were a true literary artist I should go out and deliberately get stung, but there is a limit to the sacrifices that I am willing to make for art.

July 4.—The problem of the high cost of living is now acute, and the discussion has become so general that it may be regarded as open to all. For that reason I shall venture to offer a solution.

But before offering my suggestion I propose to clear the ground by calling attention to a few fundamental truths. In spite of the Shorter Catechism, the chief end of man is to make a living. If he is to continue to live he must have food, clothing, and shelter. Moreover, he must be guarded in his right to these necessaries when he has acquired them. In primitive states of society the problem of securing food and then guarding it from plunderers came home to every man. In the brave days when our ancestors "lived upon oysters and foes" the thrifty householder, or cave-dweller, either had to go tonging oysters himself or spearing for some one who had already tonged his winter supply. In this way society gradually became divided into food producers and fighters. The fighters "recognised their own where they saw it" and proceeded to help themselves, and if a few lives were lost in the transaction that only added to their glory. It is simply appalling to read how human life was regarded when fighting and killing was still a private matter. It was a dull day when a mail-clad knight did not slaughter some one, and no one thought of questioning his right. It is only necessary to glance through some of the old romances and histories to understand what I mean. Take the case of Percy, "The Hotspur of the North." "He that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife: 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.'

"'O, my sweet Harry,' says she. 'How many hast thou killed to-day?'