40 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



scratching, or scraping. At first he thought 

 it was overhead, but finally decided it was 

 under the floor. His father could not well 

 be under the floor, for there was not room 

 for him, unless he lay down on his face, and 

 crawled. He opened the door on the side 

 opposite the storm, and looked under. There 

 was his father, sure enough, scraping out a 

 place in the dirt, so he could manage to sit 

 up by bending low his head. John was soon 

 under there too, by his side, and very soon, 

 by the aid of the spade, shovel, and hoe, they 

 could both work quite comfortably. It is 

 true, the water started two or three times to 

 run in on to them, from the rain ; but by 

 vigorously banking up the dirt it was kept 

 away, and by breakfast time a place was 

 made that would almost do to call a cellar. 

 Did they enjoy it? To be sure, they did; 

 and as John bowed his head while the father 

 asked God's blessing on all the little house- 

 hold at their morning meal, I am sine every 

 one of the four echoed his words from the 

 bottom of their hearts, even though it was a 

 damp and rainy morning. Before noon, 

 John's father struck a rock which proved to 

 be the same one found down by the new 

 spring. The rock was at a depth "that made 

 it rather high for the cellar bottom, and 

 John proposed they should split out pieces, 

 and use them for a wall on which to support 

 the building. 



■•' But we are not masons, my boy, and we 

 don't know how to cut stone and lay it up 

 into a wall, even if we had a mason's tools." 



"But, father, I know we can do it, if we 

 only try hard ; and we can do it rainy days, 

 so it won't cost any thing." 



" All right," said his father ; " we will do 

 our best at it.'' 



With the spade, a place was cut into the 

 rock, comparatively soft through damp- 

 ness, right under the center of the house, 

 and in this a post was set, that just drove 

 under the main timber of the house, effectu- 

 ally preventing the tottering of the floor 

 overhead, even if John should get excited 

 and jump up and down at the success of 

 their experiments. They soon found the 

 hole in the rock filling with water, 



" Why, father, it must be another spring." 



" Very likely." 



''Oh! I'll tell you! We will just make 

 that drain in the rock, tliat runs u]) to the 

 spring, come clear up into the cellar, and 

 then the water won't do any hurt. Can we 

 not do that, father V 



"I was just thinking of the same thing, 

 John, and I think we can do it.'' It took a 

 great deal of hard work, but it was done. 

 More than that, a place was scooped out in 

 the rock, for setting pans of milk, and there 

 they had a nice little spring-house right in 

 the cellar. 



I suppose it will now be as good a time as 

 any to tell you about the speckled trout. 



You see, while Mr. Merrybanks was visit- 

 ing some friends in Connecticut, he was so 

 much taken up with the beauty of the 

 speckled trout of the mountain streams, that 

 he brought quite a lot of small ones home, 

 and looking about for a place where they 

 could have fresh spring water, he decided 

 on the spot nearto John's temperance hotel, 



which you will see in the picture on page 

 563, Nov. No. A secure dam of stone was 

 made across the brook, and in the center of 

 the little pond thus formpd was a tuft of 

 aquatic plants and grasses,— a sort of little 

 island in appearance. Of course, the chil- 

 dren all took a very lively interest in 

 the work, and wlien the beautiful little 

 fishes were set at liberty, their admiration 

 and joy hardly knew any l)Ounds. The fish 

 soon became quite tame, and would come up 

 to be fed as readily as a lot of chickens, when 

 no stranger was near; but at the first glimpse 

 of a strange face they were off under the lit- 

 tle island so quickly that no one would ever 

 dream there were any fish at all in the little 

 pond. However, if he came up and stood 

 there a while, pretty soon, to his great sur- 

 prise, he saw a beautiful fish in the water, 

 where, a second before, there were none, as 

 it came so suddenly and quietly he was half 

 tempted to say it then and there for the first 

 time sprung into existence. In this way, an- 

 other and then another would all at once 

 start into view, with a suddenness that would 

 lead you to declare most positively they 

 could not have swum out from the weeds in 

 the center island. Well, as little fishes, like 

 little bees, are always ripe for mischief or 

 adventure, it was not long before they found 

 their way through the subterranean pass- 

 age, up into Mr. Jones's cellar, and merry 

 times did the children have watching for 

 them by lamplight, as they came trooping in 

 one after the other, only to scud around the 

 pans of milk a few times, and then hustle off 

 down to the pond again. Ilirough the narrow 

 way cut in the rock. Ot cjurse, everybody 

 had to see the speckled trout, and so it trans- 

 pired that all of Onionville, and some folks 

 who didn't live there, came to see the sight, 

 and were thereby induced to make purchases 

 at John's "hotel." Of course, every one 

 must have a drink out of the tin cup, and 

 then pretty nearly every visitor had to take 

 a cup home, just "because — well, I really do 

 not know why everybody had to buy one, un- 

 less it was because "they looked so bright and 

 clean ; for John did not make them much 

 faster than people wanted them. 



Close beside the little trout pond was 

 placed a gentle colony of Italian bees, and 

 the sight of the i)retty creatures, as they 

 sported in front of the hive, which was nice- 

 ly leveled up, and banked in front with 

 white sand, was almost as great an attrac- 

 tion to visitors as the speckled trout. A 

 path ran up to the barrel, where one could 

 look in and see tlie sand still boiling up in 

 the bottom, as the pure spring water came 

 forth from the rock. On either side of this 

 path, and, in fact, over the whole tract of 

 ground that had been the slop-hole, John's 

 father liad sown turnius, and planted white 

 beans, as these were the only two crops he 

 knew of that would mature so late in the 

 season. As this garden patch was so plain- 

 ly in sight, it was kept very cleanly tilled ; 

 for, in fact, so pleasant a spot was it that the 

 whole family were frequently out there with 

 their hoes ; and Nature, as if in gi-atitude 

 for their care, smiled with a most luxuriant 

 vegetation. Some way, some flowers got in 

 along the border, and among them were a 



