Bees and Buckwheat 201 



the surroundings, and not a tree, bush, or 

 wilted weed but was held to bear evidence 

 that the coining winter would be " open" or 

 " hard," as the oldest man present saw fit to 

 predict. No one disputed him, and no one 

 remembered a week later what he had said, 

 so the old man's reputation was safe. 



The buckwheat threshed, the rest is all a 

 matter of plain prose. Stay ! In the coming 

 Indian summer there was always a bee-hunt. 

 The old man whom we saw in the buckwheat- 

 field in Oftober was our dependence for wild 

 honey, which we fancied was better than that 

 from the hives. He always went alone, 

 carrying a wooden pail and a long, slender 

 oaken staff. How he found the bee-trees so 

 readily was a question much discussed. " He 

 smells it," some one suggested ; " He hears 

 'em a-buzzin'," others remarked. Knowing 

 when he was going, I once followed on the 

 sly and solved the mystery. He went with- 

 out hesitation or turning of the head to a 

 hollow beech, and straightway commenced 

 operations. I did not stay to witness this, but 

 came away recalling many a Sunday after- 

 noon's stroll with him in these same woods. 

 What he had seen in August he had remem- 



