“'You are old, Father William,'” I quoted.
He rubbed his biceps sadly. “I'm out of practice!” he said with some asperity. But we tried no more stunts on the apple-tree.
Beyond the orchard was a piece of split-rail fence, gray and old, with brambles growing at the intersections—one of the relics of an elder day in Westchester County. Old Hundred looked at it as he put on his coat.
“There ought to be a bumblebees' nest in that fence,” he said. “If we should poke the bees out we'd find honey, nice gritty honey, all over rotted wood from our fingers.”
“Are you looking for trouble?” I asked. “However, if you hold your breath, a bee can't sting you.”
“I recall that ancient superstition—with pain,” he smiled. “Why does a bee have such a fascination for a boy? Is it because he makes honey?”
“Not at all; that's a secondary issue. It's because he's a bee,” I answered. “Don't you remember the fun of stoning those gray hornets' nests which used to be built under the school-house eaves in summer? We waited till the first recess to plug a stone through 'em, and nobody could get back in the door without being stung. It was against the unwritten law to stone the school-house nests in vacation time!”
“Recess!” mused Old Hundred. “Do you know, sometimes in court when the judge announces a recess (which he pronounces with the accent on the second syllable, a manifest error), those old school-days come back to me, and my case drops clean out of my head for the moment.”
“I should think that would be embarrassing,” said I.
“It isn't,” he said, “it's restful. Besides, it often restores my mislaid sense of humor. I picture the judge out in a school-yard playing leap-frog with the learned counsel for the prosecution and the foreman of the jury. It makes 'em more human to see 'em so.”