204 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



would (in my hands) bend nearly double, 

 and it could not be induced to follow a 

 straight line. Of the family hammer I 

 need not speak, for the Danbury Neics man 

 has described it exactly, and the descrip- 

 tion has been in all the papers. Some- 

 what against my inclination — for, when it 

 is quite as convenient, I like to be inde- 

 pendent — I was forced to appeal to Rich- 

 ard for counsel and aid. 



The counsel I received was this — to em- 

 ploy a carpenter. That was what he did, 

 whenever he liad anything to build of more 

 importance than a hen-coop. It was folly 

 to waste time in trying to do poorly what 

 it was another man's business to do well. 



I rejected the counsel on the spot, in- 

 forming my adviser that I had too much 

 consideration for my bees to make them 

 pay for frames. I should, doubtless find 

 trouble enough in keeping t!ie credit and 

 debtor sides of their account balanced for 

 them, without indulging in such wasteful 

 extravagance. If he would but be good 

 enough to saw off some pieces of board, 

 of manageable size, I should need no 

 further help. 



" But you will need to buy a finer saw, 

 and a smaller and better hammer," said 

 Richard, as lie proceeded to do my bidding. 



" Don't say that I will need to buy them ! 

 Don't you know that you need them ! Do 

 you suppose that I mean to charge my 

 bees with saws and hammers, for lack of 

 which 3'ou are actually suffering!" 



Richard whistled — meaning thereby to 

 express, as to the suffering, ar> increilu- 

 lity too deep for utterance. But the next 

 day he repented, and brought me the neat- 

 est of little saws and the prettiest of little 

 hammers. I was wise enough to remind 

 him, after expressing due satisfaction, that 

 the saw and the hammer were Ms — "only 

 as you are a little careless about such 

 things, Richard, I will take care of them 

 for you, and use them occasionally, to 

 pay for the trouble." I have yet to learn 

 that Richard has used either hammer or 

 saw, save in my service. 



After various attempts at shaving down 

 and planine down — at dividing with the 

 saw and splitting with the carving-knife, 

 ray pieces of inch board, I gave it up, and 

 instituted anotherfor better material. The 

 lid of a flour-barrel tempted me; and, if I 

 remember rightly, I succeeded in making 

 one frame therefrom. Whoever does bet- 

 ter than that must have patience and 

 skill, of quality greatly superior to mine. 

 Finally, I found an extra fine packing-box, 

 made of good j)ine boards of just the 

 right thickness. I troubled neither myself 

 nor anybody else with idle questions as 

 to whelher or no the box might be useful 

 for other purposes. To pull it to pieces, 

 with the aid of chisel and hatchet, was an 

 easy and a pleasant task. 



By this time I had learned wisdom. I 

 had added to my hammer and saw another 



necessar}- implement — a lead pencil. 

 With the help of this, I ruled my boards 

 into narrow strips, marked oft" the appro- 

 priate lengths, and bided by time. 



The time in question was dinner-time. 

 It happened, strangely enough, that 

 though the summons to dinner was given 

 that day in due season, the dinner was 

 late. Richard, seeing that there was a 

 mistake somewhere, and that an interval 

 of waiting was before him, began to look 

 about him for the last newspaper. Skill- 

 fully iuterceptingthe paper, I handed him 

 the saw instead, and pointed to my pile 

 of penciled boards. 



"While waiting, won't you please saw 

 these strips ? I know that you can do it 

 better than I, and with less risk to the 

 saw." 



Richard accepted the saw good-natur- 

 edly enough, only shrugging his shoulders 

 a little when Nellie laughingly reminded 

 him how literally he was obeying Long- 

 fellow's injunction, to 



" Learn to labor and to wait." 



But for ray own part, I ara not sure but 

 I was a little ashamed of my strategy. 

 With some remorse I remembered how 

 faithfully I had promised myself, long be- 

 fore, thai in no event should my bees be 

 allowed to trouble, either directly or indi- 

 rectly, anybody but myself. I re-assured 

 myself, however, by reflecting that the 

 dinner was a little better worth waiting 

 for than usual that day — a fact that Rich- 

 ard would be sure to appreciate. 



I had said to myself that I should have 

 no trouble in putting the pieces together. 

 I could do this easj' enough, surely. Af- 

 ter dinner I proceeded to do it. But to 

 my dismay, I found that the nails would 

 split the ends of the side pieces, or they 

 would go in obliquely. And, in fact, to 

 simplyhold the pieces together, at right 

 angles with each other, was a serious 

 matter over which I sighed so often, and 

 so deeply, that Nellie — after advising me 

 to hunt up an old geometry and refi'esh a 

 little my knowledge of right angles — 

 finally took pity and came to my assist- 

 ance. 



She held the pieces while I hammered, 

 and the result was an improvement on my 

 previous work. True, (uu- first square 

 frame was rather a shumboid, and hung in 

 a tipsy, one sided style, quite distressing 

 to a person of regular habits and correct 

 taste to look upon ; but as we progressed 

 we succeeded better. I must not omit to 

 mention of the guide strips, for the put- 

 ting in of these pleasantly relieved the 

 monotony of the work. I tried sawing 

 them out, whittling them out, and was 

 not very successful cither way. I tried 

 to fasten tliem in with tacks, and failed 

 completely. Then I tried glue, and final- 

 ly I ambitiously attempted the sawing of 

 a groove, into which the strips should 

 exactly fit. But it didn't fit, and I could 



