THE RUNNING AT SWARMING TIME 



29 



octogenarian Grandmother enter the 

 race. Upstairs she hurried to the spare 

 l)e(lroom — never entered except on rare 

 occasions when some distinguished guest 

 was present or expected. She pulled the 

 liedclothes olT. She thought that she 

 piled the pillows in a chair, but in her 

 excitement she seemed to be having a 

 ])illow fight. She threw those pillows 

 right and left. There probably were only 

 two on that bed. but the entire atmos- 

 ])Iiere seemed full of flying pillows. She 

 threw down comfortable and blanket ; 

 she pulled out the sheet, because, as she 



was with great difficulty tliat he could 

 walk from the house out to that chair, 

 suddenly joined in the general scramble. 

 Forgetting his stiff joints, and even one 

 of his canes, he ran for the very last 

 empty hive — one hardly fit to use, but 

 in the emergency anything and every- 

 thing" must be brought into service if the 

 swarm was to be saved, even if the hay 

 Avere lost. With the hive he ran to the 

 workshop because the cover was a little 

 loose and one side was a little uncertain, 

 and like the expert carpenter that he 

 was, he hurriedlv drove in the necessarv 



■THE COXCOCTIOX FROM THE PANTRY." 



explained, all the others were in the 

 wash just wdien she most needed them. 

 She gathered up the sheet — no, gathered 

 is not the word — she did not fold it, she 

 did not crumple it, she just "wapsed" 

 it u]) and ])ushed it under one arm, leav- 

 ing the other hand free to cling to the 

 railing as she hurried down. I had 

 followed her, not expecting to be of 

 much assistance, but rather to see the 

 good old lady struggle with the bedding. 

 In the meantime Grandfather, who 

 spent a decade or more punching his 

 cane into the ground by his easy chair 

 under the apple trees, and who said it 



nails, one, as I recall it, a shingle nail, 

 the other a spike. Anything that would 

 hold the parts together would do. All 

 this time Grandmother had been en- 

 gaged on a second round of running". 

 From the pantry slie grabbed a hand 

 basin, vinegar, salt, sugar, pe]i])er. mo- 

 lasses — perhaps 1 may be slightly in er- 

 ror in regard to the pepper ; possibly the 

 salt is a little off, but again treacherous 

 memory brings to me a vision of a fran- 

 tic g-raljbing of anything and everything 

 from the shelves, high and low. And 

 then out she dashed through the kitchen 

 to that bench. The whole thing was 



