Connecticut western news., 1875-08-27
SlLAS LIVING BEES.
How he Expected to Do It, md How he
 Didn't Do It.

How he Expected to Do It, md How hs
 Didn't Do It.
 The old gentleman s name is Si1as, at6 that of his eldest son is George; his wife's name is Matilda, and his three pretty daughters are named Helen, Alice and Susie there is little Silas, too, and an older boy whose name is too queer to mention. .... P. -.
 The bees had alighted in great bunch, as large as half bushel measure, on the limb of peach tree in the yard. You all know how it is done. A table is placed under the overhanging limb, spread with clean white cloth, end the hive placed thereon. ...l
 Then one of the boys, one that is good for nothing else, is sent into the tree with saw to sever the limb the limb comes down slowly and easily, and the old gent below, dressed in great coat, buckskin gloves, cowhide boots, and a bed quilt tied around his head and face, slyly manipulateS @ twig from the tree, and in two minutes has safely coa4ed every bee to enter the hive, during all of which time Matilda and Helen and Alice and Susie pound the bottoms ottt of just four tin pans, little Silas does his pret- tiest yelling, while the boy with the qtieer name Is just old enough and sharp enough to slip behind the house md wait for the thing to come to point. That is the way it ought to have gone off i; but that isn't the way it did. Silas, the elder, was very comfortably bundled up for so warm day, and he had his suit we'll arranged, only he forgot to tie strings around the bottoms of his pants legs.
 The bees had settled on the limb of a peach tree, and Silas, when his table and white cloth and hive were all ready, commanded:
 "Now, George, grab that old rusty saw and climb 1 guess you can cut that small limb off easy enough"
 George was just home from a six months term at school, and he felt great tenderness for his father, and would have gone through patch of this ties barefoot to please the old gent, ahd yet he had a particular dread for the "business " enc" of 0 bee, and particu- larly of such crowd of them. But he obeyed, and began to fiddle away eau tiously upon tho particular limb. One little ,btineh of bees dropped off and we're caged another and another stttall btineh dropped, and the prospect seemed good, when suddenly an old honey maker, who had been in the business before, scared upward. George shit tip one eye quick, gave one terrific surge on the old rusty saw, got out of that tree at one jump, and bis anxious mother caught one glimpse of him as he flew around thu corner of tile batn twenty rods away.
 But poor old Silas The bees came down, and he thought the bunch was as big as haystack now. They did not go into the hive, but they went through his overcoat and bed-quilt as if these had only been mosquito bars, and they climbed up the inside of his pants legs, and the old gent danced as he had never danced before and he slapped his legs, as he never allowed any one else to slap them, and his voice lowered high above the chatter of the tin pans and the shrieks of little Silas as he yelled
 "Throw water on me! throw water on me soak me, wet me down ]"
 He rolled three or four times over in the grass, and sprang up. shouting "Slap me slap me Can't you slap me9" in the midst of which little Silas crept up behind his infuriated pa and U0dlb u1Iu tt 11V0ly Ou0 W1bL Il Su1uS1o but poor little Silas landed the next second against the milk house, for his pa took him and his shing1e for thousand bees, and gently brushed them off.
 O, the agony of that three minutes jig. He appealed to his wife.
 "Matilda, for Heavens sake, bring me another pair of brooches, won'tyo 9'
 But these things don't last always, any more than any other happiness, and after few minutes the old gent came limping out of the cellar with the brooches on that Matilda brought him, feeling much easier, but certainly much fatigued, just as George got back from the barn and the boy with the queer name slipped around the corner of the house. Both boys were very anxious to know how matters stood and asked:
 "Did you git 'em hived, pa9"
 But the old man was too mad to answer or even look at his boys. He turned to little Silas and said:
 Little one, you meant all right, and I'm sorry cuffed you so next time don't slap so hard"
 Then to his wife !" Matilda, to you I owe everything. Accept my heartfelt gratitude. We'll take no more stock in bees. I have made up my mind, and it's settled. May our quiet, peaceful farm home never be so stirred up again. Seems to me never had so much of life crowded into few short minutes be- fore. Run after the COWS, now, boys; be of, for it's almost dark"