A ROMANCE OF ANATOMY 147 



triously to the task hour after hour, when the sun 

 has fixed his slothful golden grip upon you, and 

 the drowsy song of the bees has worked its will on 

 heart and mind. 



Good resolutions have a way of petering out, 

 reasonably enough, under these inviting circum 

 stances. The honey-barrow makes the most com- 

 fortable seat in the world, and can be pulled up 

 just where the shade of the linden-trees is thickest. 

 Moreover, the blue smoke of tobacco, drifting 

 lazily up through the sunshine, adds just that touch 

 of deliberation needed in a scene where all is 

 unmitigated, almost desperate toil ; while what 

 difference can it make if one alone be idle in the 

 hundred thousand ? And so, as often as not, the 

 creaking wheel comes permanently to rest under 

 the lindens; the honey is left to the honey-makers; 

 the thoughts follow the bees into their hives, or 

 may-be wend away over seas to the great planta- 

 tions, where the dry weed filling the pipe-bowl 

 was once a green leaf in an ocean of green, flecked 

 over with blossom, and sung over by bees, whose 

 ancestors might have come from this very nook in 

 old England, where it is now all ending in smoke 

 and quiet thought. 



But, especially on rainy days, when there is 

 much to do indoors — preparing the section-racks, 

 discharging the honey from the full combs that, 

 empty, they may be returned to the hives for re- 

 filling on the morrow, and what not — the tendency 

 10 — z 



