HUNTING THE HONEY-BEE 247 



after much sweating of brows and lusty plying of 

 axes a barrier impassable to teams, athwart 

 the commonwealth's highway, and nothing in it 

 but a nest of yellow-jackets ! Another who suffered 

 a like disappointment and a cruel stinging to boot, 

 when asked, by one aware of the facts, "if he had 

 got much honey," answered, as he rubbed open 

 his swollen eyelids: "No, we didn't git much 

 honey, but we broke up their cussed haunt." 

 There was a degree of consolation in this. 



I do not like the bee-hunter as a bee-hunter, 

 for he is a ruthless and lawless slayer of old trees. 

 I cherish an abiding hatred of one who cut the 

 last of the great buttonwoods on Sungahnee's 

 bank. Think of his lopping down a tree whose 

 broad leaves had dotted with shadow the passing 

 canoes of Abenakis, in whose wide shade salmon 

 swam and wild swans preened their snowy plum- 

 age in the old days, and for a paltry pailful of 

 honey! I hope the price of his ill-gotten spoils 

 burned his fingers and his pocket, and was spent 

 to no purpose; that the honey he ate turned to 

 acid in his maw and vexed his ulterior with gripes 

 and colic; and I wish the bleaching bones of the 

 murdered tree might arise nightly and confront 

 him as a fearful ghost. Its roots were not in my 

 soil, but its lordly branches grew in the free air 

 which is as much mine as any man's, and when 

 they were laid low I was done a grievous and ir- 



