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 
lo——2 
