arry Veazie away and turn
him into honey and the honey comb."

"If you talk that way I'll have to swear off on honey!" exclaimed
Browning, with a wry face.

"Hold on! Jest hold on!" the farmer was begging.

Veazie started to run, and the farmer reached out a hand for the purpose
of detaining him.

"They ain't stingin' you!" he insisted. "Jest keep your hands down and
keep still an' they won't do a thing to you!"

"Oh, they won't do a thing to him!" howled Danny.

Veazie dropped flat to the ground.

"Jest hold on!" begged the farmer. "Jest hold on! They're lightin' round
the queen!"

Then he dipped his big hand into the pail and began to ladle out the
water and drench the bees with it, while the old woman flailed with the
roll of cloth to keep them away from her, and the farmer's boy, dancing
up and down in his excitement, jangled the bell like an alarm clock.

"Jest hold on!" the farmer urged, as Veazie showed signs of rolling
over. "I'll git my fingers on that there queen in a minute, and then
I'll have 'em. I wouldn't lost this swarm fer five dollars. Jest hold on
a minute!"

"Veazie's queen!" some one sang out from the heart of the surging,
talking, sensation-loving throng. "I always knew you were attractive,
Veazie, but I didn't know females rushed at you in that warm way. Yes,
jest hold on a little, Veazie. We don't have a circus like this every
day, and we want to get the worth of our money."

Ollie Lord, Chickering, Hull, Skelding, and the others seemed to have
been almost deserted by the bees, that were now swarming down upon the
hapless lisper, drawn there by the fact that the queen had found
lodgment somewhere on Veazie's neck.

Under the influence of the farmer's commands, Veazie ceased to kick and
strike, and lay like a gasping fish while the man deluged him with
water.

"Thay, I'm dwoning!" he gasped at last. "Thith ith worthe than being
thtung!"

But, in truth, the deluge of cold water took away something of the fiery
pain of the stings.

"Just hold on!" cried the farmer again.

Then he thrust a thumb and finger down into the writhing wet mass of
bees, drew out the queen, which by its size and shape he readily
distinguished from the others, and began to rake the bees into the new,
empty pail.

When he had the most of them in, the old woman threw the cloth over
them. The farmer was now down on his knees, and the bees that were still
on Veazie he began to pick off and pop into the pai