28 OH! THOSE WASPS. 



light, " I'm jist a-goin' for 'em. I broom 'em, and then I mop 'em 

 up and squaze 'em. Five quite dead in the kitchen. And here's 

 bad kick to 'em up here ! " 



While Katy was raging like a tornado among the angry wasps, 

 slaying in every direction, grandma was soothing the bitten arms 

 and legs. There they were on the lounge in a row, eight bare 

 little arms, and eight bare little legs also, for the wasps had put 

 their needles through the children's stockings. Did they mean to 

 darn any holes there? 



When Major-General Katy had killed all the enemy with charges 

 of broom and mop, grandma asked for an account of the accident. 

 Then she said, " Well, what are you going to do about it? " 



" Let's put them in a pail of hot water," said Poppy. 



"Pail of hot water! No; drown 'em in the freezing, freezing 

 ocean," said Patty, shaking her head. 



" ]S^o, let's go up jiist as quietly as we can, and pull their stingers 

 out," said Margery Ann, who belonged to a Band of Mercy, and 

 did not want to kill them. 



" No ; ril tell you," exclaimed grandma, and she looked wise as 

 Moses in the Old Testament. " I wouldn't go near them. That 

 is the best way for children to treat wasps, and a good many other 

 things in this world. Don't go neai- them, and then you will never 

 have trouble. I'll get Patrick to go out some day with a lot of 

 sulphur, a bunch of hay, and some matches, and he will take care 

 of them. The best way for you to manage wasps is to keep away 

 from them." 



Patty and Poppy and Pan and Mai'gery Ann thought it was 

 queer advice to such old children as they were. As they all lived 

 in the city, and did not know much about the dangers of the 

 country fields, grandma continued to look more and more like the 

 wise Moses. They thought they would not again go near those 

 *' queer black and yellow flies." 



