386 Next to the Ground 



ping to recollect. For instance, it was seven 

 kinds of bad luck to buy or sell bees, excel- 

 lent good luck to steal them, and lightning 

 luck — that is the most unexpected strokes 

 of it — to have a stray swarm settle on your 

 place, with nobody ringing bells at them or 

 throwing up clods of dirt. Further, bees 

 would be sullen, sting, work laggardly, and in 

 the end run away, if you did not specially tell 

 them when any body died or was born. Neither 

 would they thrive if you forgot to give them a 

 special Easter good-morrow — good-morning 

 would n't do in the least. 



The people at White Oaks disputed none 

 of this. They were kindly wise enough to 

 understand that the old man's beliefs were too 

 ingrained to be controvertible by mere reason. 

 Besides, they had all the large tolerance of the 

 fields — which teach, as nothing else can do, 

 that there are more things than have ever been 

 mapped and bounded, or brought to book in 

 the widest or the narrowest philosophies. 



THE END 



