The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1905-03-11
A RHEUMATISM CURE.

Mr.. Middlerib read in his paper q
paragraph stating that the sting of /;
bee was sure cure for rheumatism
Mr.. Middlerib thought of the rheu
matte twinges that grappled his knees
He read the article several times
The bee was to be gripped by the ear
and set down upon the rheumatic
| joint and held there until it stung It
self stingless.
He contracted with Master Middle
rib for limited supply of bees. Fol
the small sum of one dime Master
Middlerib agreed to procure several
to wit: six bees, sex and age moi
specified.
Evening brings all home, and the
last rays of the declining sun fell upor
Master Middlerib with short, wide.
mouthed bottle comfortably popu
lated with hot, ill-natured bees. The
dime and bottle changed hands. Mr.
Middlerib put the bottle in his coal
pocket and con6ded his guilty secrei
to none of his family. He hid his
bees in his bedroom, and as he looked
at them he wished the bees did moi
look so hot and cross.
When everybody else was in bed
he sought his room.
Mr.. Middlerib disrobed slowly,
then crept into bed. After lying still
few moments he reached out and
got his bottle of bees.
It was not an easy thing to do to
pick one bee out of the bottleful with
his fingers and not get into trouble.
The first bee Mr.. Middlerib got was
little brown honey-bee, that wouldn't
weigh half an ounce if you picked him
up by the ears, but if lifted up by the
hindleg he would weigh as much as
the last end of a bay mule. Mr..
Middlerib could not repress groan.
Whats the matter with you p
sleepily asked his wife.
It was very hard for Mr.. Middle
rib to say he only felt hot, but he did
it. He did feel very hot, indeed
about eighty-six all over, and one
hundred and ninety-seven on the end
of his thumb. He reversed the bee
and pressed the warlike terminus Of
it firmly against the rheumatic knee.
Itdidn' hurt so badly as he thought
it would.
Te 1s1..SA L...k - III
Then Mr.. Middlerib remembered
that when the shoney-bee stabs a
human foe it generally leaves its har-
poon in the wound, aud the invalid
knew that the only thing this bee had
to sting with was doing its work at
the end of his thumb.
He reached his arm out from under
the sheets and dropped this disabled
atom Of rheumatism liniment on the
carpet. Then, after a second of blank
wonder, he began to feel around for
the bottle, and wished he knew what
he did with it.
Meantime strange things had been
going on. When he caught hold of
the first bee Mr.. Middlerib, ,forreasons,
drew it out in such haste that for a
time he forgot all about the bottle
and its remedial contents, and left it
lying uncorked in the bed, between
himself and his innocent wife. In the
darkness there had been a quiet but
general emigration from that bottle.
The bees were crawling aimlessly
about over the sheet. While Mr..
Middlerib was feeling around for it
his ears were suddenly thrilled and
his heart frozen by wild, piercing
scream from his wife.
Murder p she screamed. "Mur-
der Oh Help me! Helpl Help I"
Mr.. Middlerib sat bolt upright in
bed. His hair stood on end. The
night was warm, but he turned to ice
in a minute.
"Where in thunder r"-he said with
pallid lips, as he felt all over the bed
in frenzied haste; "where are them
bees?"
And large humble" with a sting
as pitiless as the finger of scorn, just
then climbed up the inside of Mr..
Middlerib's nightshirt, until it got
squarely between his shoulders, and
then it felt for his marrow.
And Mrs. Middlerib felt ashamed
of her feeble screams when Mr..
Middlerib threw up both arms, and
with howl that made the windows
rattle, roared:
"Take him off Oh, land of Scott,
somebody take him off |"
And when honey-bee began
tickling the sole of Mrs. Middlerib' s
foot she shrieked, and went Into
spasms.
The household was aroused by this
time. Miss Middlerib and Master
Middlerib and the servants were pour
ing into the room, adding to the
general confusion by bowling at ran
| dom and asking irrelevant questions
while they gazed at the figure of
man little on in years, arrayed in 9
long nightshirt, paving fercely at tht
unattainable spot in the middle of hi:
back, while he danced an unnatural,
weird, wicked-lookingjig by the dim,
religious light of the night-lamp.
And while he danced and howled
and while they gazed and shouted,
navv.blue wasp, Master Middlerit
had put in the bottle for good measure
and variety and to keep the menageris
stirred up, fred himself across the
room, and to his dying day Mr.
Middlerib will always believe tha
one of the servants mistook him for {
burglar and shot him. .
No one, not even Mr.. Middleril
himself, could doubt that he was, al
least for the time, most thoroughly
cured of rheumatism Robert i
Bnydette, tit ~. Y. Weekly.