AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 



we pull ourselves slowly and cautiously by main 

 strength. In half an hour, the perspiration stream- 

 ing from every pore, we reach the summit. The 

 trees here are all small, a second growth, and we are 

 soon convinced the bees are not here. Then down 

 we go on the other side, clambering down the rocky 

 stairways till we reach quite a broad plateau that 

 forms something like the shoulder of the mountain. 

 On the brink of this there are many large hem- 

 locks, and we scan them closely and rap upon them 

 with our axe. But not a bee is seen or heard ; we 

 do not seem as near the tree as we were in the 

 fields below; yet, if some divinity would only whis- 

 per the fact to us, we are within a few rods of the 

 coveted prize, which is not in one of the large hem- 

 locks or oaks that absorb our attention, but in an 

 old stub or stump not six feet high, and which we 

 have seen and passed several times without giving 

 it a thought. We go farther down the mountain 

 and beat about to the right and left, and get entan- 

 gled in brush and arrested by precipices, and finally, 

 as the day is nearly spent, give up the search and 

 leave the woods quite baffled, but resolved to return 

 on the morrow. The next day we come back and 

 commence operations in an opening in the woods 

 well down on the side of the mountain where we 

 gave up the search. Our box is soon swarming 

 with the eager bees, and they go back toward the 

 summit we have passed. We follow back and estab- 

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