Year: 1875

Silas living Bees.


How he Expected to Do II, and How he


Didn't Do It.


The old gentleman's name is Silas,
and that of his eldest son is George
his wife's namo 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.


The bees had alighted in great
bunch, as large as half bushel mea-
sure, on the limb Of peach tree in the
| yard. You all know how it is done.
| A table is placed under the overhang-
ing limb, spread with clean white
cloth, and the hive placed thereon.


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 bed quilt tied around his head
and face, slyly manipulates twig from
the tree, and in two minutes has safely
coaxed every bee to enter the hive.
during all of which time Matilda and
Helen and Alice and Susie pound the
bottoms out Of just four tin pans, little
Silas does his prettiest yelling, while
the boy with the queer name is just old
enough and sharp enough to slip be-
hind the house and wait for the thing
to come to point. That is the way
it ought to have gone off 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 well
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; I 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
thistles barefoot to please the old gent,
and yet he had a particular dread for
the business end of a bee, and partic-
ularly of such a crowd Of them. But
he obeyed. and began to fiddle away
cautiously upon the particular limb.
One little bunch of bees dropped off
and were Gagged; another and another
small bunch dropped, and the prospect


d
seemed good, when suddenly an old
honey-maker, who had been in the
business before, scared upward. George
shut up one eye quick, gave one terrific
surge on the old rusty saw, got out Of
that tree at one jump, and his anxious
mother caught one glimpse Of him as
he few around the corner of the barn
twenty reds away.


But poor old Silas! The bees came
down, and he thought the bunch was
as big as a haystack now. They did
not 60 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 be never allowed
any one else to slap them, and his voice
lowered high above the clatter 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 |
me p in the midst of which little Silas
crept up behind his infuriated pa and
dealt him lively one with shingle /; |
but poor little Silas landed the next |
second against the milk house, for his
pa took him and his shingle for thou
sand 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 breeches, won't
your


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
breeches 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 we're very anxious
to know how matters stood and asked


Did you git 'em hived, pa?'


But the old man was too mad to
answer or even look at his boys. He
turned to little Silas and said:


sT,itt1o ono vnr m oont oil ri0ht ond |