My Boyhood and Youth 



ing away the chipper. Father never spent an 

 hour in that well. He trusted me to sink it 

 straight and plumb, and I did, and built a fine 

 covered top over it, and swung two iron-bound 

 buckets in it from which we all drank for many 

 a day. 



The honey-bee arrived in America long before 

 we boys did, but several years passed ere we 

 noticed any on our farm. The introduction of 

 the honey-bee into flowery America formed a 

 grand epoch in bee history. This sweet hum- 

 ming creature, companion and friend of the 

 flowers, is now distributed over the greater part 

 of the continent, filling countless hollows in 

 rocks and trees with honey as well as the 

 millions of hives prepared for them by honey- 

 farmers, who keep and tend their flocks of 

 sweet winged cattle, as shepherds keep sheep, 

 a charming employment, "like directing 

 sunbeams/' as Thoreau says. The Indians call 

 the honey-bee the white man's fly; and though 

 they had long been acquainted with several 

 species of bumblebees that yielded more or 

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