HAPPY 



and steal your supplies; a moth may enter and lay 

 eggs producing destructive worms; a bear may chance 

 to find you and with his great paws rend the hive 

 asunder!" 



"Stop!" I cried. "If there are yet other dangers, 

 I do not wish to know them." 



"But it is well to know. There are diseases to com- 

 bat, such as dysentery, paralysis, and foul brood 



"Oh, stop!" I begged him. 



Was life really such a hazard? so perilous a journey? 

 And all for what? Toward what misty goal? 



It was a glorious day in October. The Indian sum- 

 mer had come, flooding all the hills and vales with its 

 magical sheets of amethyst, while a drowsy wind 

 from the south bore on its breath the odor of autumn. 

 Now and then that indefinable note, presaging the 

 advent of winter a note wiiich is neither a requiem 

 nor a dirge could be heard like a faint flute in the 

 branches of the trees. The sun shone big and round 

 and still with a suggestion of summer. Scattered 

 'clouds went drifting lazily by, wonderfully emphasiz- 

 ing the turquoise blue of the sky. 



"Is it going to rain?" I asked of Crip, who was drag- 

 ging himself along on the alighting-board, ready for a 

 new excursion into the woods. 



"No," he mumbled. 



It had been weeks since my experience in the flood, 

 but ever after that when a cloud was in the sky I 

 bethought me of rain. But I had now come to know 

 that rains were something more than clouds. 



Crip and I had been laboring to fill adjoining cells. 

 We had already gathered many loads of honey that day. 



92 



