. "I'll bet there is," he added, "a runaway swarm that's gone
in at the gable end outside, where the clapboards are off."

He climbed up on the high pulpit and with the handle of the broom rapped
on the ceiling. We immediately heard a deep humming sound overhead, and
so many bees flew down through the cracks that Addison descended in
haste. We retreated toward the door.

"What are we going to do when Senator Hamlin and all the people come?" I
asked.

"I don't know!" Addison muttered, perplexed. "That old loft is roaring
full of bees. We've got to do something with them, or there won't be any
speaking here to-day."

We thought of stopping up the cracks, but there were too many of them to
make that practicable. To dislodge the swarm from the loft, too, would
be equally difficult, for the more we disturbed the bees the more
furious they would become.

At last we thought of the old Squire's bee smoker with which he had
sometimes subdued angry swarms that were bent on stinging.

"You drive home as fast as you can and get the smoker and a ladder,"
Addison said, "and I'll stay here to watch the fire in the stove."

So I drove old Nance home at her best pace. When I got there I looked
for the old Squire to tell him of our trouble, but found that he had
already driven to the village to meet Senator Hamlin and the other
speakers of the afternoon. Grandmother and the girls were too busy
getting ready for the distinguished guests, who were to have supper with
us, to give much heed to my story of the bees. So I got the smoker, the
box of elm-wood punk and a ladder about fourteen feet long, and with
this load drove back at top speed to the meetinghouse.

Addison had eaten his share of the luncheon that we had brought, and
while I devoured mine he pottered with the smoker; neither of us
understood very well how it worked. There are now several kinds of bee
smokers on the market; but the old Squire had contrived this one by
making use of an old-fashioned bellows to puff the smoke from out of a
two-quart tin can in which the punk wood was fired by means of a live
coal. The nose of the bellows was inserted at one end of the can; and
into a hole at the other end the old gentleman had soldered a short tin
tube through which he could blow the smoke in any direction he desired.
In order not to burn his fingers he had inclosed both bellows and can in
supporting strips of wood; thus he could hold the contrivance in one
hand and squeez