e and blistered my palms.

Basswood is not a hard wood, however, and at last the tree started to
fall; but instead of coming down on our side of the gully it fell
diagonally across it and crashed into the top of a great hemlock that
stood near the stream below. The impact was so tremendous that many of
the brittle branches of both trees were broken off. At first we thought
that the basswood was going to break clear, but it finally hung
precariously against the hemlock at a height of thirty feet or more
above the bed of the brook. From the stump the long trunk extended out
across the brook in a gentle, upward slant to the hemlock. The bees came
out in force. Though in felling the tree I had disturbed them
considerably, none of them had come down to sting us, but now they
filled the air. Apparently the swarm was a large one.

Old Hughy was a good deal disappointed. "I snum, that 'ere's a bad
mess," he grumbled.

At last he concluded that we should have to fell the hemlock. Judging
from the ticklish way the basswood hung on it, the task looked
dangerous. We climbed down into the gully, however, and, with many an
apprehensive glance aloft where the top of the basswood hung
threateningly over our heads, approached the foot of the hemlock and
began to chop it. The bees immediately descended about our heads. Soon
one of them stung old Hughy on the ear. We had to beat a retreat down
the gully and wait for the enraged insects to go back into their nest.

The hole they went into was in plain sight and appeared to be the only
entrance to the cavity in which they had stored their honey. It was a
round hole and did not look more than two inches in diameter. While we
waited for the bees to return to it old Hughy, still rubbing his sore
ear, changed his plan of attack.

"We've got to shet the stingin' varmints in!" he exclaimed. "One of us
has got to walk out with a plug, 'long that 'ere tree trunk, and stop
'em in."

We climbed back up the side of the gully to the stump of the basswood.
There the old man, taking out his knife, whittled a plug and wrapped
round it his old red handkerchief.

"Now this 'ere has got to be stuck in that thar hole," he said, glancing
first along the log that projected out over the gully and then at me.
"When I was a boy o' your age I'd wanted no better fun than to walk out
on that log; but my old head is gittin' a leetle giddy. So I guess you'd
better go and stick in this 'ere plug. A smart boy lik