"No, Squire, I don't believe I will while ye're eatin'. I jest wanted to see if I could borry one of yer boys this forenoon. I've got a swarm of bees lined over to whar the old-growth woods begin, and if I'm to git 'em I've got to foller my line on amongst tall trees and knock; and lately, Squire, I'm gettin' so blamed deaf I snum I can't hear a bee buzz if he's right close to my head! So I come over to see if I could git a boy to go with me and hark when I knock on the trees." "Why, yes, Glinds," said the old Squire, "one of the boys may go with you. That is, he may if he wants to," he added, turning to us. Addison said that he had something else he wished to do that forenoon. Halstead and I both offered our services; but for some reason old Glinds decided that I had better go. Grandmother Ruth objected at first and went out to talk with the old fellow. "I'm afraid you'll let him get stung or let a tree fall on him!" she said. Old Hughy tried to reassure her. "I'll be keerful of him, marm. I promise ye, marm, the boy shan't be hurt. I'm a-goin' to stifle them bees, marm, and pull out all their stingers." And the old man laughed uproariously. Grandmother Ruth shook her head doubtfully; old Hughy's reputation for care and strict veracity was not of the best. When I went to get ready for the jaunt grandmother charged me to be cautious and not to go into any dangerous places, and before I left the house she gave me a pair of gloves and an old green veil to protect my head. Before starting for the woods we had to go to old Hughy's cabin to get two pails for carrying the honey and a kettle and a roll of brimstone for "stifling" the bees. As we passed the Murch farm the old man told me that he had tried to get Willis, who stood watching us in the dooryard, to go with him to listen for the bees. "But what do you think!" he exclaimed with assumed indignation. "That covetous little whelp wouldn't stir a step to help me unless I'd agree to give him half the honey! So I came to git you, for of course I knowed that as noble a boy as I've heered you be wouldn't act so pesky covetous as that." Getting the tin pails, the kettle and the brimstone together with an axe and a compass at the old man's cabin, we went out across the fields and the pastures north of the Wilbur farm to the borders of the woods through which old Hughy wanted to follow the bees.