160 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



May 



My Neighbor's Garden 



By C. D. Stuart 



MAXY years ago, my neighbor, 

 although possessed of the 

 conventional garden, is said 

 also to have cornered that huge 

 tract of nature's garden lying just 

 above and beyond my apiary, fenced 

 it, posted it and otherwise prepared 

 it for his own exclusive enjoyment. 



"Buckin' natur' right from the 

 start," was the verdict of his old 

 gardener when one morning he de- 

 scended from where the chimneys of 

 my neighbor's mansion loom like 

 battlements against the sky, to re- 

 pair a broken fence in the ravine 

 near my beehives. "lust look a' 

 that!" He waved his arm toward the 

 expanse of wooded hills "Two thou- 

 sand acres! No man can keep all that 

 land to hisself." 



"Not while my surplus honey 

 comes from it," I agreed. 



The gardener's eyes widened. 

 "What from?" 



"Pussy willow down by the creek, 

 first. After that the wild blackberry 



— not much nectar from it, but plenty 

 of pollen for the brood. That square 

 I sent you Christmas was Ceanothus 

 honey." 



"Thought I smelled Wild Lilac 

 when I went into it!" he grinned. 



"Same thing," I told him; "a flow- 

 ering shrub." 



"Wild Lilac! You'll have some crop 

 this year; hills are blue with it. That 

 last you gave me was good honey. 

 too. 



"It came from poison oak What 



are you staring at, man?" I de- 

 manded; "your land is covered with 

 it." 



"It was covered," he corrected. "I 

 dug out miles of it makin' trails for 

 the Missus. Carried my swollen 

 arms on a pillow for a week after !" 

 He stopped and eyed me blankly. 

 "Say, neighbor, poison oak juice is 

 black, an' just natcherally burns a 

 hole in you wherever it touches ; that 

 honey was white. Are you sure it 

 was poison oak?" 



"Positive. Nothing else in bloom 

 when the bees made it." 



"And I ate it!" Overcome by the 



:<1 Trail. — Photograph by John R Douglass 



thought, he sat down on a boulder 

 and tumbled for a smoke. Suddenly 

 he laughed. "That's a good one on 

 the boss — takin' all that honey right 

 from under his very nose!" 



"Bees don't know they're trespass- 

 ing. They can't read the old man's 

 signs." 



"Nobody reads 'em. Tell me ! Why 

 are signs like prohibition?" 



"Give it up," I answered. 



"Don't prohibit," he roared, his 

 breath redolent with local option. 



"Your boss owns the land," I re- 

 minded him; "if he gets joy — " 



"He don't !" interrupted the gar- 

 dener, and lovingly lit a long, black 

 cigar. "Made 'im simply wild to see 

 anybody else enjoyin' his property, 

 an' he went broke tryin' to enjoy it 

 ! v hisself." 



"Well, he ain't exactly in the bread 

 line," admitted tlu gardener, in 

 answer to my scarcely-veiled curi- 

 osity; "but hog-tight fencin' an' fancy 

 bull pups cost a lot. Then old Miss 

 Riley got bit." he continued, between 

 puffs. "She was pickin' blackberries 

 on his premises, but the Court want- 

 ed to know who owned the dog. That 

 one bite cost $5,000. cash money." 



He smoked on, recalling other inti- 

 mate details. 



"Next, Jim McCarty's goats broke 

 in. The dogs investigated, and old 

 Billy landed on him, then went on 

 browsin' just like nothin' had hap- 

 pened. Jim owned right up the goat 

 was his, hut pay damages? No, sir. 

 Said no dog's neck was wuth $500, no 

 matter what his pedigree: an' as fer 

 three acres of Wild Lilac, that was 

 only fit fer goat fodder anyhow — not 

 knowin' it was Ceanothus an' good 

 fer honey. Besides that he said the 

 goat was grazin' on his land that the 

 boss had fenced in. Before the Court 

 could decide which was a lyin', along 

 came a fire an' burned the fence. An- 

 other $5,000 went to char the titles 

 an' buy new fencin'. All that." con- 

 descendingly, "was before your time." 



I nodded. 



"Fences are a lot o' worry." he 

 mused. "Don't last no longer'n it 

 take-, to fix 'em. That's what put the 

 old man in the hospital." 



It was my turn to stare. My neigh- 

 bor in the hospital! It seemed but a 

 day since he had passed, peering ihis 

 way and dial as though to make sure 

 the world were in proper order. 



"Yep, nervous prostration. 'Course 

 hunters do get in an' slio.it a rabbit 

 now an' then." tlie gardener contin- 

 ued; "but I've found 'cm pretty de- 

 cent sort o' fellows. They," with a 

 last lingering puff, "sure smoke bullj 

 cigars." 



"But the flowers -ferns and a/a- 

 lias — are they safe?" 



Ilr rose and picked up a roll of 

 wire. "The people arc harmless— 

 mostly convalescents and lovers ex- 

 plorin' trails, or tourists lookin' fer 

 a view, or mebby a tramp bouscarin' 



round fer a warm place to sleep ; or 



them automobile pii nickers alvt .in s 



wantin' a spring handy to shade: 



ilh a sly wink, "your bees at- 



i ei our poison i iak " 



Having no cigar and no more 

 oni j nil the new crop, I merely re- 

 marked that it was hard luck when a 



