# The Bees

From The Century Magazine, Mar 1915
The Bees
By SOPHIE KERR UNDERWOOD
Illustrations by Henry Raleigh
HESTER RINGGOLD hurried down through the garden, past the rows of herbs and vegetables, ducking under the branches of the lilac-bushes until she came to the flowering crab-apple-trees, which showered pink-and-white petals on her colony of bee-skeps, shining like mounds of gold in the sun. She paused a moment, for all her haste, to look at them with pride. Hester was the only woman in the whole neighborhood who could twist a rope of rye-straw and wind it into a shapely, weather-proof bee-skep, and she took keen pleasure in the simple art and would have none of the new-fangled hives of sawed boards. This morning, though, she had little time to linger and admire. Her hands were full of strips of black cloth, hastily torn, and at each skep she stopped and knotted a piece of the somber stuff into the yellow straw. She moved quite fearlessly among the bees, without veil or gloves, a tall, magnificent woman, with a coil of heavy, tawny, sunburned hair that matched the deep sunburn of her smooth skin. She worked quickly, and had reached the last skep but two when her husband, Anse' Ringgold, called from the barn:
"Get your hat, Hes'. I 'm cumin' right up."
In a few minutes he appeared, leading the bay mare hitched to the spring-wagon. He had on his ugly Sunday clothes, and a cheap black derby hat that aped the fashion and did not suit his placid, rustic head. Anse', in his way, was as fine and handsome as his wife, though his shoulders were stooped a little and thickened from the heavy farm work, and he was awkward, as are most country men, unless they are at some accustomed task. He got into the spring-wagon and waited, reins in hand. Presently Hester came up from the garden and handed him a great bunch of dark-fronded tansy sprays.
"Here, Anse'," she said, "put these in the back, f'r it 's likely they might want some to lay in the coffin. I was tellin' the bees. Seemed 's if I ought to do that after Unc' Jonas taught me all I know about 'em."
He nodded and did as Hester directed, and she went on into the house. Presently she came out in her hat and shawl, and climbed into the spring-wagon beside Anse', and they drove away. They talked little on the road. Once Anse' exclaimed regretfully:
"I wisht I could 've got them melons in," Hester answered:
"Death takes no 'count of seed-time ner harvest, 'pears like. Funny, when you spoke up about the melons, I was sittin' here studyin' about the bees. Last year come this time I 'd had two swarmin's. I hope some of 'em takes it into their heads to swarm to-day whilst we 're off."
"You always talk like they was humans," said Anse', with a little smile.
"They got more sense 'n humans some ways," maintained Hester. "Unc' Jonas ust to quote Bible that bees was the wisest of insecks. Land! what store he set by the old sayin's! If I 've heard him say over
A swarm o' bees in May
Is wuth a load o' hay
oncet, I 've heard him say it a million times. Seems like I cain't figure out that he 's gone."
"He was prob'ly glad to go, 'flicted like he was," Anse' replied reflectively.
"Prob'ly," assented Hester; "an' he was well prepared, if ever anybody was."
There was a long silence between them after that, but finally Hester brought out with a sigh:
"I should n't wonder if there 'd be conflictions between Aunt Myry and Zelia over the prop'ty. They ain't never agreed over nothin' sence Unc' Jonas brought Aunt Myry home. 'T ain't in natur' to like a stepmother ner a stepchild, I suppose; but they cert'n'y have had powerful rookuses between 'em. I cain't never be sure whose fault it is, neither."
"If you ask me, it 's Zelia's," replied Anse'. "She 's always been a forward piece an' she 's got a kind a mean streak in her, like her ma's folks." There was no malice in his condemnation. He was merely telling what he had seen and concluded.
"I reckon you 've made out the rights of it," said Hester, sighing again. And she would have said the same if he had laid the blame the other way. Whatever Anse' said was right to Hester.
They drove briskly, for they had fourteen miles to cover, and the road was very rough. Twice they had to ford streams, and there were long hills that tried the bay mare, and long stretches of sand that could be traversed only at a walk. Though they had started early, it was near noon when they reached the farm, Jonas Massey's farm, who was Hester's own uncle, and who now lay dead in the front room of the two-story house that he had built with his second wife's money, and of which he had bragged inordinately even when his "afflictions" were laid on him and he became a bedridden sufferer.
The yard and the lane were full of vehicles, for the country-side had rallied to what they knew would be a notably big funeral, even in a community where funerals were always mighty gatherings. Hester Ringgold got out and went into the house to condole with the mourners and to help with the dinner—the lavish dinner that must be prepared for all who had come, no matter how many. It was the pride of those bereaved to make this meal something to be told of with admiring envy throughout the neighborhood for months afterward. A family that did not provide amply, nay, extravagantly, for the funeral dinner was the target of certain scorn, and held to have slighted the dead.
Anse' stayed outside to unharness and feed his horse, and then he joined the other men, who had gathered in the shade of the corn-crib, out of the warm sun of the May noon. Desultory talk went on among them.
"He left a pretty good passel of worldly goods," said one of the older men as Anse' came up. "Yes, sir, I call it a pretty good passel."
" 'T wa'n't his, though," broke in another. " 'T was mostly all come to him with Myry. Jonas did n't have much tell he married the secont time."
"Cur'us, hain't it," philosophized another, "how frequent men gets it good in their secont marriage that had n't no luck at all with the first? Seems like a man gits better jedgment with women when he picks a secont—more choicy like."
"Jonas's first was a Deevers," piped up an old man, "an' while there ain't no call to misname the dead, it ain't fur from the truth to say she had all the Deevers temper, and was puny besides. An' Zelia 's her very spi't an' image, only not so puny. But Myry, now, she 's a good woman, Myry is."
"I don't hold with secont marriages," said Anse' Ringgold, slowly, his big body towering over the group. "I hold that ef you 're married oncet, accordin' to Bible you 're married f'r this world and the next."
"It 's a fine p'int," said a little lame man, a local preacher of some repute. "I don't know 's but I think you got the Bible with you, Anse'."
"Yes, Anse' has got the rights of it," remarked another, dryly, "f'r everybody knows he 's got one of the finest-hearted women that ever stepped. He don't want no secont, certain."
A chuckle went around the group. Anse' started to answer when a little girl about ten came running down from the house and stopped before them.
"Ma says," she began, twisting her toe into the dirt in confusion—"ma says you-all should come ter dinner." Then she turned and fled into the house twice as fast as she had come.
"One o' Myry's, hain't she?" asked the local preacher as they straggled toward the house.
"Three older, 'n' two younger," succinctly replied Jonas Massey's nearest neighbor. "An' all livin'."
There was a long table set across the kitchen floor, and the men sat down around it, to eat and be waited on by the mourning; family and the women friends who had come to help. Just as Anse' Ringgold would have taken his place, Hester touched him on the arm and beckoned him outside.
"Come off a little ways," she whispered, and they walked down toward the barn until they were well out of earshot.
"It 's about Zelia," she said. "I had n't no more 'n got my hat off when Aunt Myry opened out. She says Zelia sha'n't on no 'count stay with her, an' she don't lay out to give her nothin' of what Unc' Jonas left. An' Zelia she up an' said she would n't have nothin' even if 't was give', an' she would n't stay even if Aunt Myry wanted her; and they had it back an' forth."
"Yes, honey," said Anse', smiling; "an' you said you did n't want no hard words passed whilst the dead was unburied, and that Zelia was welcome to come along home with us to-night, did n't you?"
"How 'd you know?" said Hester, drawing back.
Anse' gave a little chuckle.
"Think we ain't lived together fifteen year' come Christmas that I don't know what 's in your head as well as if 't was mine?" he asked.
"Well, you got the rights of it, Anse'," said Hester. "I said pretty nigh them very words. Zelia 's my own cousin, an' I don't 'low for any of my blood kin to want f'r a home whilst I got one. But you know I won't do nothing without your say-so, an' if it ain't agreeable to you to have Zelia, we 'll just pass her on to Aunt Ca'line Massey, acrost the valley."
"S' far 's I 'm concerned, Hes'," said Anse', "if you 're satisfied, I 'm satisfied. If Zelia 's minded to be party round the house and help you fair, I say let 's take her an' treat her kindly. But she ain't goin' to come an' start any of her tantrums. That 's flat."
"I 'll take care o' that," said Hester. "Now you go long an' eat. We got to get things cleared up f'r the services. Aunt Myry 'lows to have things mighty fulsome. She 's got three preachers, an' ol' man Janders to pray."
It was almost sundown before the long burial service was over and the slow procession returned from the family burying-ground on the hillside above the green wheat-field. Anse' hurried to hitch the mare to the spring-wagon, and Hester helped Zelia pack her belongings into an old skin-covered trunk, and tried to cheer the girl in what her tender heart felt to be a tragic situation. But Zelia wanted no cheering. She flung her clothes into the trunk in raging haste. She snatched from the wall the picture of her own mother that had always hung there, and she pushed out of her path spitefully the wondering little stepsisters who had been no party to her hurt. As they went downstairs, Hester put a protecting arm around her; but Zelia held herself as straight and stiff as a ramrod and would not acknowledge the kindness. By Hester's heroic figure she looked no more than a little girl, or a little doll—one of those little china dolls children used to have, with scalloped black hair on her forehead and hard, bright blue eyes. Her lips and her cheeks were as red as if they were painted, and her throat was singularly white. She climbed up into the spring-wagon and did not turn her head to say good-by to the worn-out and goaded stepmother who came to the door with her children about her, and would have taken back her harsh words of the morning if Zelia had shown any signs of softening.
Anse' looked at the rigid little figure curiously, then, as Hester got in beside them, he and she exchanged a meaning look over Zelia's head.
"You 'd 'a' better said good-by to your stepma," said Hester, mildly, as they drove away. "After all, she 's been pretty good to you, an' she was feelin' tol'able upset this mornin' when she spoke like she did."
Zelia made no answer, but her little doll-like face set into rigid lines of obstinacy.
"Well, well," went on Hester, "we 'll say no more about it. Oncet you 're home with Anse' an' me, we 're goin' to try to make you forget how onpleasant things has been f'r you. I 'm layin' out to teach you to help with the bees. Unc' Jonas he was a master hand with bees, an' I expec' you 'll prove the same."
"I hate 'em," said Zelia, sharply. "Nasty stingin' things!"
Anse' and Hester again exchanged a look over Zelia's head. During all that long drive Zelia did not speak again, and when they reached the house, late in the cool darkness of the May night, she got out stiffly, and without a word suffered herself to be conducted to the little bedroom that opened off the kitchen. Hester turned back the top of the gay Rose of Sharon quilt and the white homespun sheet and left her with a kindly good night. But even then Zelia's sullenness did not break. Hester went back to Anse' with a look of discouragement in her kind eyes.
"Maybe it 's just that she 's wore out with her pappy 's dyin' an' the funeral an' Aunt Myry an' all," she said to Anse', excusingly.
Anse' inserted his heel in the bootjack and gave a mighty heave.
"I wisht I thought so," he said dryly. "Here, where you goin'?"
Hester paused at the doorway.
"I just thought I 'd run down the garden an' see if the bees was all right, 'r if they 'd swarmed or anything."
"Now, Hes'," said Anse', poising the bootjack for another bout, "you cain't see nothing in this dark."
"I c'n sense a swarm," retorted Hester and was gone. "Ever'thing 's all right," she reported happily a few moments later.
"Well, I 'low you got somethin' besides your bees to baby over now," prophesied Anse', gloomily attacking his stiff shirt collar. "If Zelia keeps on like she 's started, y' got your hands full."
But the next morning Zelia had thawed a little. She got up early, and helped with the breakfast and the milking. After that she went with Hester to feed the chickens. Anse' was striding off far down the lane, hoe over his shoulder, his melon-seed box under his arm, all his thoughts on the delayed planting. Zelia looked long after his departing figure.
"Cousin Anse' shorely is a big man," she vouchsafed at last.
Hester laughed richly.
"Laws, child," she said with relish, "when we was courtin', he was the fines'-lookin' young feller you could ever think of. We 're both gittin' along a little now, an' he ain't so up-headed as he was, but he 's got the best heart—an' he 's the kindest. He could n't say a ha'sh word to nobody." She gazed after him with pride and love in her eyes. Zelia continued to look, too.
"Yes, Cousin Anse' shorely is one big man," she repeated. In the clear sunlight her fresh red-and-white prettiness was more doll-like than ever. Hester glanced at her admiringly; it seemed to her that if she had a daughter of her own she would want her to look just that way. And the thought of Zelia's recent bereavement made her reach over and give her a tender pat on the shoulder.
"Now come along an' see my bee-skips," she said. "An' then we got to dust round and churn and get to thinking about dinner. I was layin' out to bake some potato custards. Anse' likes 'em, but Anse' 'd eat crumb pie if they wa'n't no other kind of pie to be had."
"Is Cousin Anse' so pow'ful' fond of pie?" asked Zelia, curiously, as they turned to the garden.
"I never yet seen a man that was n't pow'ful' fond of pie," laughed Hester, throwing back her fine head, gaily; "but Anse' is the beateree."
"Don't you never wear no sunbonnet?" asked Zelia, her cold, blue eyes fixed on Hester's sunburned throat.
"I cain't, somehow," said Hester, unconsciously checked in her mirth. "It seems to kind o' smother me."
"That 's why you 're so terrible brown," said Zelia in a self-satisfied tone. "It 'u'd just kill me to get all browned up like that."
There was a silence.
"There 's the bees," said Hester, trying to keep her voice natural and cool. "Anse' laughs at me, I 'lot on 'em so. But I work out here in the garden s' much by myself that they kind o' make comp'ny f'r me. There 's somethin' powerful folksy about bees, oncet you get to know 'em. Don't them old-fashioned skips look purty settin' out like that? Jest the color of the honey they got inside. Uncle Jonas taught me how to make a bee-skip, an' I make all o' mine. If you want, I 'll show you how, an' you can start one or two for yourself. More, if you want 'em."
"I don't want to bother," said Zelia. "I 'm afraid of 'em."
Hester went on ahead a little. "You need n't be afraid of mine," she said. "They 're nice-dispositioned." But even as she spoke, three or four bees from the nearest skep began to buzz angrily about, and Zelia waved her arms wildly and backed away.
"Stand still!" commanded Hester. "It drives bees crazy to have people jumpin' about. Stand still, I tell y', or you 'll get stung."
The words had hardly left her lips when Zelia shrieked and, throwing her apron over her head, flew for the house. Hester hastened after her, worried and puzzled.
"Where 'd you git stung, Zelia?" she asked, as they gained the vantage-ground of the kitchen.
"Here on my arm," snapped out Zelia, wrathfully. "The nasty thing! I told y' I was afraid of 'em. I don't see why you made me go along out there."
"There, there," soothed Hester, "it 's all upset y'. Lemme draw the sting out and put hartshorn on the place, an' it 'll stop hurtin'." But she turned away to rummage in her medicine-shelf with a puzzled air, and when she came back with the bottle of hartshorn, she said: "I cain't und'stand it. Them bees never stung a livin' thing before, human or critter. I hope they hain't misliked y'."
The rest of the morning passed more pleasantly. Zelia unpacked her trunk and made up her bed. She swept the big front room that took up all the space of Hester's little house save the tiny kitchen and kitchen bedroom. She even said a word in admiration of the exquisite log-cabin quilt that decorated the four-post bed in the corner. She swept up the fireplace with the little hearth broom of twigs. Hester marked it all, and her feelings of misgiving and uncertainty melted away before the girl's evident desire to be useful.
"It 's just that she was n't never treated right at home that makes her act so unlikely now an' again," she thought to herself. She made several plans for the future while she was rolling her pie-crust. She would take Zelia into Four Corners some time soon and trade in enough eggs to get her stuff for a white summer dress. Hester had a pleasant vision of the two of them sewing through long, warm afternoons. Maybe, too, Zelia would like to learn to spin and weave, two old-fashioned arts in which Hester excelled. She thought of her little flax-wheel up in the loft, and how much pleasure it would be for her to teach the girl the use of it. "It 'll be most the same as if we had a I da'ter," thought Hester, wistfully. It had been a constant heartache to her that she had borne no children.
But when they sat down to their noon dinner of flaky quick biscuit, dried beans cooked with salt pork, and one of the potato custard pies, the spirit of perversity again seized upon Zelia.
"Land! Cousin Hes'," she shrilled out, glancing at her plate, "you eat 's much as a man."
Hester flushed a little, but drew her lips together and did not answer. Seeing that her shot had told, Zelia preened herself complacently and asked Anse' most amiably about his crops. This was sheer art, for his farm was the thing dearest to Anse's heart.
He expatiated on his corn, his oats, his melon-patch, just made. He 'lowed to raise a little patch of buckwheat, too. Hester, seeing that he had not marked Zelia's thrust at her, was well content to see him pleased and interested. She even made excuses for Zelia's ill temper to herself. "She ain't nothin' but a child," she thought, "an' she just outs with everything that comes into her head. I do wisht, though, the bees would 'a' took to her. I cain't understand how they come to sting her."
"Now, Zelia," she said aloud when the meal was over, "you jump up an' get y'r Cousin Anse's pipe an' t'bacca. It 's up on the chimney-shelf."
Zelia jumped to do her bidding with alacrity. She even brought in a live coal for a light, with little cries of alarm lest she should drop it. She played at service with a rustic coquettishness that sat well on her round little figure, and when she laughed, looking up at Anse' as he puffed out the first great clouds of smoke, she was as pretty and as cunning as a playful kitten.
"My goodness!" she cried, "I don't reach up to y'r elbow hardly. You shorely are a big man, Cousin Anse'." She affected to measure herself against his arm, and in so doing rubbed her plump shoulder against him. Watching her, a queer, cold feeling crept into Hester's heart.
"Now," she said briskly, "let 's get the dishes red up before we se' down." And Zelia, with a toss of her head, came to help.
The fair vision that Hester had had of a daughter who would sew and bake by her side, to whom she could teach her skill in spinning and weaving, who would take pleasure in her garden and delight in her bees, slowly, very slowly vanished in the days that followed. To be sure, Zelia had her good days—days when she would be gentle—that is, quiet—enough, would work skilfully and well, would restrain her sharp tongue, and then, presto, all was changed. She would loaf and loiter, and slight the light round of duties that Hester had laid out for her, and would lose no chance to cast some petty taunt, some malicious little slap, at Hester, But she never did this before Anse' or when there was any danger of his noticing it. Before him she was as sweet as honey, waiting on him, cajoling him, playing around him, all artlessly artful, now the teasing child, and now and then, very subtly, the alluring woman. He commented on her favorably to Hester.
"Zelia 's doin' purty well, seems to me, I reckon all she needed was to git away from your Aunt Myry. She 's a good biddable girl here."
And Hester always acquiesced. Her heart ached over Zelia, She did not want to send her on to the drudgery of Aunt Ca'line Massey's meager home, though there were moments when she was tempted to do it. She brought all of her homely common sense to bear on the situation. Once she meditated on answering Zelia with a taunt as cruel and as keen as Zelia's own, but her big heart forbade. Then, remorseful for having even thought of such a cruel thing, she made a special trip to town and came back with a parcel of gifts which she felt sure would definitely win Zelia's affections. There was white lawn for a dress, a lace collar, and a length of scarlet ribbon for her hair.
This last Zelia seized upon.
"Oh, ain't that the purtiest thing!" she cried out. "Thank y' kindly, Cousin Hes'."
Then she turned quickly to the mirror, and knotted the ribbon about her black curls. It was startlingly becoming, and she smiled at her image and turned her head this way and that to get the full effect. In the glass she could see Hester standing behind her, and without turning her head or taking her eyes off herself, she said laughingly: "My—oh—this here 's a regular man-catcher, fer sure. I 'm goin' right down to the field and show it to Anse'. I 'll bet he 'll like it." And she flashed out of the house like a gay little parrakeet flying to its mate.
For a moment Hester stood perfectly still, struck dumb with the insolence of it. Then she slowly picked up the length of lawn and the lace collar and carried them into Zelia's room and laid them on the chest of drawers. She looked about the disordered little room, the bed carelessly made, clothes thrown about, the furniture set crooked. "She did n't even say 'Cousin Anse'," said Hester Ringgold aloud. "Ta'nts me to my very face. Well." The red of slow anger surged up under her brown skin, and her cheeks burned. She slowly took off her town dress and put on her calico and big apron. She was just pinning this when steps sounded on the porch, and Zelia came flying in, a thunder-cloud on her face.
"He was n't there," she said angrily. "He 's gone to the mill." She snatched the red ribbon off her hair, and untied the bow with a jerk. Then she turned on Hester sharply. "Huh, what you gawpin' at me that away for? Sometimes you act like you was moonstruck or somethin'."
Hester caught her breath. She looked down at Zelia with entire calmness, though she could feel not only her cheeks, but her whole body, burn with rage.
"Now," she said, "you 'n' me 'll have to have an understandin'. Whilst you 're in my house, you 've got to keep a civil tongue in your head. You don't rightly sense what an ugly way you got of speakin'. Don't you never again, s' long as you live, use such words to me."
She wanted to go on and tell Zelia plainly that she must leave Anse' alone, but her pride forbade. She could not put such an indignity on her love for Anse'. Besides, Zelia looked so little, so young. Hester's anger left her as suddenly as it had come. "Now, Zelia," she said soothingly, "what 's the use of you havin' these ugly spells? Why can't you live here with Anse' an' me as peaceable as we always lived before you come?"
At Anse's name, Zelia flung up her head and looked at Hester, and the hate in her eyes was as black as the color of them. With a comprehending little laugh that was all sneer, she drew back and went into her bedroom, and did not come out until supper was ready. Then she appeared, serene and smiling, the red ribbon on her hair again, cajoling and flattering Anse' with every trick she knew, and now and then looking across the table to be sure that Hester missed nothing of his responsive teasing and playfulness.
"You 're so quiet, Hes'," said Anse' at last, anxiously. "Ain't you feelin' good?"
"I reckon I got a little tired goin' to the Corners to-day," answered Hester.
"Then you let Zelia here clean up the dishes whilst you set out on the porch with me," he said. And he would have it no other way.
In the cool darkness of the porch Hester looked gratefully across at Anse', and moved her chair so that she could touch his shirt-sleeve without his knowing it. In this mesh of painful circumstance that surrounded them she could still count on Anse' absolutely. This was Anse', her own man. A feeling of calm and security stole over her racked nerves. She touched Anse's arm.
"Look at that moon over yander," she said softly. "It 's as round and yeller as one o' my bee-skips."
"Just about," he answered. "How you feelin' by now, honey? Any more rested?"
The peace and content that that evening hour with Anse' brought to Hester were not with her when she wakened the next morning. She dreaded to face the day, as she had been dreading the days before. She dreaded Zelia. She could not mistake the hate in the girl's heart. But she took a larger part in the conversation, and she quietly checkmated Zelia in some of her attentions to Anse', although her quickened perceptions told her that this was only a feeble defense. She felt that Zelia would fight desperately for the affection on which she had centered her perverse and thwarted nature. The increasing heat of summer made the strain of the situation sharper.
To work in her garden, where the drowsy humming of the bees drifted pleasantly through the greenness, was Hester's chief solace. Zelia never came near her there, because of her fear of the hot-tempered little people of the yellow skeps, so Hester could go about her garden tasks in comforting solitude. As her quick, brown fingers flew in and out among the bean-vines, her mind dwelt on Anse' and Zelia.
"If she only had a suitor!" thought Hester. "But none of the young men hereabouts can abide her. Seems like they sense her double nature. I cain't help a-wondering if there 's any good in the girl. I 've took her in and done for her as if she was my own, but it ain't no use. It 's just 's if, instead of being sick to her body, she 's sick to her natur', full of hate an' despisery an' ill wishes. And then her everlastin' foolin' around Anse', an' he never s'spectin' a thing. Or maybe does he?" It leaped into her head with a terrifying emphasis. But she loyally pushed the thought back.
She lifted up the pan of beans she had picked and started slowly for the house. Anse' was at the well, drawing a bucket of water, and he did not hear or see her coming. Neither did Zelia as she stole out of the house behind Anse'. Standing on her tiptoes, she reached up and around, and clapped her hands over his eyes.
"Guess who," she called out gaily. Hester stopped and watched. The familiarity of the playful gesture turned her sick and faint. She trembled with the fierce beating of her heart. It seemed to her she would die before Anse' spoke. What would he say! What would he say !
"Here, look out!" he called impatiently, shaking himself free. "Y' made me spill about ha'f. Sometimes y' act like y' had n't good sense, Zelia."
There was no mistaking the impatience in his voice and his complete unconsciousness. Hester stepped behind the corner of the house and drew a long breath. Then she walked briskly around to the well. Zelia had drawn back sullenly, and Anse' was quite intent on his bucket. He looked up as Hester approached.
"Want a drink, Hes'?" he asked good-naturedly. "I 'm pret' near parched down in the corn-field. I 'm a-goin' to stop cultivatin' now tell the sun goes off a little this aft'noon." And presently he went off, unknowing, care-free.
It seemed to Hester Ringgold that she could not set her foot inside of her house again while it held Zelia. She had to force herself over the threshold and into the kitchen. Zelia eyed Hester narrowly as she entered.
"I 'll shell them beans," she said, holding out her hand for the pan.
"Nev' mind," said Hester, not looking at her and hardly opening her lips. And Zelia, with her characteristic toss of the head, left her alone.
But Hester could not get back her self-control. As she went about her homely preparations for dinner, peeling potatoes, shelling beans, piling wood into the cook-stove, her heart went on pounding, pounding. The trembling that had shaken her from head to foot seized her again and again. At last she went out and walked among the bee-skeps, up and down, aimlessly, while the bees hummed around her in friendly recognition. The strips of black that she had knotted into the straw still clung there, weather-beaten and frayed. One by one Hester pulled them out.
"Your own child, Unc' Jonas," she said aloud, accusingly—"your own child striking at her own blood kin. I cain't figure what she 's made out of. We was so peaceful, Anse' an' me—an' my garden—an' my bees—" she looked woefully about her. "An' now—now—oh—I ain't a-goin' to think about it. I ain't goin' to think about it."
But she could not help thinking about it, and she could not help watching—watching. Every moment that Anse' was in the house she found herself watching him, wondering, then watching Zelia, wondering—wondering. But there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. Anse' was just the same as he had always been, big and kind and gentle. Or was he changing? Was he changing? Sometimes panic seized Hester, and she felt as if she must die of pain. She would not say a word to Anse'. She held her head up, and bore her suffering without a sign. But she lived in a maze of cruel emotions, in a keen suspense. What—what was happening to her—and Anse'? If she could only know!
There came a cloudless Sunday in late August when they lingered long at breakfast, Anse' picked up his pipe and went out on the little porch. Zelia slipped after him. Hester was piling up the dishes, but she paused and listened. Zelia's voice came to her distinctly.
"You shorely air a powerful big man. Cousin Anse'. I thought so the first time I seen you, an' the more I look at you, the bigger an' more pow'ful you look to me. How come you ever married a great, strappin' woman like Cousin Hes'? Mos' big men takes up with little women—like me."
The voice was insinuating, coaxing. Without looking, Hester knew that Zelia had her hands on Anse's arm, perhaps leaning her head against his shoulder, a childlike custom that she much affected. Hester put down the plate in her hand and waited, straining every nerve to hear what Anse' would say. Red flamed into her face. Her breast rose and fell stormily.
"You better not talk so much about things you don't know nothin' about," came the answer at last in Anse's deep, quiet voice. "An' I 'low you better go on in an' he'p Hes' in the house."
Hester drew a long, sobbing breath, half pain, half relief. She did not want to meet Zelia's eyes as she came in. She went out into the morning, and unconsciously turned her steps toward her refuge, the golden, singing bee-skeps. At first she did not look at them at all. And then she looked, and then she looked again, unbelieving, amazed.
She lifted one of the skeps, another, and then her cry brought Anse' and Zelia both.
"Anse'," cried Hester Ringgold, lifting her arms to heaven—"Anse', the bees is gone!"
It was true. The hives were empty. She lifted them all, one after another. They were empty. The bees were gone. Then Hester Ringgold turned, like some great avenging goddess, and pointed her finger at Zelia.
"It 's you!" she said with terrible emphasis. "It 's you that done it. This here 's a sign. Many and many 's the time Unc' Jonas has told me that bees won't stay where there 's hate in the house. You know what you been doing. From the very first day sence you been here you tried to turn Anse' Ringgold to you—away from me. An' you 've despised me continual' an' wished me ill. The bees has told on you complete."
Zelia fell back before the accusation. The scarlet left her cheeks, and she looked withered and old and ugly. Hester went on:
"You little pitiful whiffet! You think you c'n turn Anse' from me! I 've lived with him f'r nigh on to fifteen year', an' we never had a cross word. Anse' an' me ain't two people; we 're bound together so 's nothing but death can part us, an' death could n't part only our bodies." She turned to Anse', and her voice softened and fell. "Sunlight an' moonlight, sleep an' waking, my life an' Anse's is shared together. There ain't no other man in the world for me, an' I know that there ain't no woman in the world f'r him but me. You cain't no more really come betwixt us than you can alter your sinful spirit, Zelia Massey. What did you try it for? We took you in an' fed you an' kept you, an' you would 'a' been like our own da'ter ef you had behaved yourself seemly. But now you go."
Zelia was whimpering with anger and fright. She turned to Anse'.
"Cousin Hes' must be crazy," she sobbed. "I ain't done nothin'. Air you goin' to let her treat me so?" She peeped at him between her fingers.
Anse' looked at her blackly.
"You go in an' pack your things," he ordered. "I 'm goin' over to Jim Peters an' ask him to take y' over to Ca'line Massey's before noon." As Zelia went into the house, Anse' went up to Hester and put his arms around her. "You said it true, Hes'," he said, "sunlight an' moonlight, sleep an' wakin', our lives is shared together."
For three days the bee-skeps sat empty and silent, and then, as suddenly and as mysteriously as they had gone, the bees returned, and took up their work. Hester had come down the garden to make the first picking of the sage when she became aware that the friendly voices of the hives were again alive. She turned to look. Yes, they were there, cheerful and unconcerned. Something swelled in Hester Ringgold's heart, and the tears that would not come when she was most miserable now swam in her eyes. She took a few stumbling steps toward the bee-skeps.
"Oh—you—you don't know what you done for me!" she cried aloud. She wiped her eyes, and went on until she stood among the skeps. The bees winged about her friendly-wise. Hester laid her hand on the nearest skep and spoke, as one registering a vow before a high altar. "You 'll never have no cause to go away again," said Hester, passionately, to her bees.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1965, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 58 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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