XV
MISS QUEEN BEE
“Keep way fum dem bee hives, yer hyah?” admonished Phyllis from her old rocking chair under the cherry tree, where she alternately dozed and kept watch on the children playing around her in the yard.
“Mammy, the bees are all crawling out of the hive,” exclaimed Willis.
“Lawdy mussy, dem bees fixin’ ter swarm!” then raising her voice, “Zeek’l,—ah Zeek!—come quick, yer bees fixin’ ter swarm!”
Zeek came running up through the garden, with a tin pan and stick in hand calling, “Which way’d dey go?”
But the bees answered the question themselves, for at that moment they started in the direction of the garden. Zeek began to beat furiously upon the tin pan, while the children screamed in excitement as they beheld the bees hover a moment above Zeek’s head, then descend one and all upon his hat. Many straggling ones crawled about his face, one in its distraction landed upon his eyelid, closing the eye.
Zeek walked steadily without batting the open eye, until he reached an empty gum. There with the assistance of Phyllis, he carefully relieved his head of its dangerous burden.
“Whew!” he exclaimed, wiping the perspiration from his head, “dat’s de out-bangin’es’ hivin’ I ev’r done in all m’ life, an’ dat hive in dat ole gum ain’t wurth er cent,” he ended reflectively.