“I’m going to tell Farmer Joel about him,” announced Russ. “Maybe he’ll have him arrested,” suggested Violet. Suddenly Laddie pointed to the boy and exclaimed: “Look how funny he’s acting!” “What makes him do that?” asked Vi. “Oh, listen to him yell!” ejaculated Russ. Indeed, the peddler lad was acting strangely. He was in the woods now and he was jumping up and down, waving his arms about, slapping his hands on his head and legs, and at the same time crying aloud. “What’s he saying?” asked Rose. “Hark!” advised Russ. They all listened, and from the jumping boy came the words: “Oh, I’m stung! I’m stung! Take ’em away, somebody! Take ’em away! I’m stung!” Then Rose cried: “Bees! Bees! A lot of bees are after him!” “Yes, and there are some buzzing around here!” said Russ quickly. “He must have run into a hornet’s nest or something, and some of ’em are flying around here. I heard ’em buzz!” “So did I!” added Violet. “But they aren’t hornets,” said Laddie. “Look! There’s one,” and he pointed to a yellow-banded insect lazily flying in the air above them. “That’s a honey bee, like those Farmer Joel has.” “And look at the lot of ’em around that boy!” cried Rose. “Oh, what a lot of bees!” She pointed to the woods where the rascally lad was still leaping about, slapping himself with his hands, and now and then lying down in the dried leaves to roll about. “Come on! We’d better run!” advised Russ. “These are honey bees all right, but they sting as badly as hornets. A swarm must have gotten away from Farmer Joel’s and this boy ran right into ’em. Come on, we’ll go before they get after us.” As yet only one or two bees had flown toward the six little Bunkers, but they started away, nevertheless, for there was no fun remaining at a picnic if they had no lunch to eat. “Oh, look! There he goes, running!” cried Laddie, pointing toward the peddler boy who was darting away into the woods as fast as he could go, followed by the cloud of bees. CHAPTER XXV THE HONEY TREE The six little Bunkers paused a moment before leaving the picnic grounds, where so sad a happening as losing their lunch had occurred, and looked toward the peddler boy. He was certainly running as hard as he could to get away from the stinging insects. “It serves him right for taking our lunch!” declared Rose, though perhaps she shouldn’t have said it. “Do you s’pose the bees knew he took our things? And did they sting him because they like us and because Farmer Joel has bees like these bees?” asked Violet, looking at a honey insect perched on a flower. Violet seemed to think it best to ask as many questions at once as possible. But no one took the trouble to answer them. Russ and Rose were anxious to get the smaller children out of the way of the bees. “Come, children! We’ve got to hurry, just as Russ says,” said Rose. “Is it goin’ to rain?” asked Mun Bun. Generally when there was a shower coming up he knew the need of haste.