CHAPTER XBUZZING BEES
Russ and Rose, who had been walking along the shores of a little brook looking for the missing cows, heard Violet’s yells. A moment later they heard shouts from Laddie. He was saying:
“Get back there, you old cows! Get back there! Don’t you dare hook my sister!”
Then Violet’s voice sounded again:
“Oh, but Laddie, they are going to hook me! Oh! Oh!”
“Come on!” called Russ to his sister Rose, and together they rushed up out of the little glen where the stream ran and hastened toward the clump of trees and bushes whence came the voices of Laddie and Violet. Ralph and his dog were not in sight.
“Do you suppose the cows are trying to hook Laddie and Violet with their horns?” asked Rose.
“I don’t think cows would,” panted Russ as he ran on followed by Rose, who could not go quite so fast. “Cows don’t hook you, I guess, but bulls do, though I didn’t hear Ralph say there were any bulls in this pasture.”
“Is a bull worse than a cow?” Rose asked.
“For hooking you a bull is the worst there is,” Russ answered. “But I don’t suppose it’s a bull. Maybe the cows are only shaking their heads at Violet and she thinks they’re trying to hook her.”
And this is just what had happened. Laddie and Violet had found the lost cows. The two black animals were standing peacefully in a shady place, chewing their cud. Perhaps they were day-dreaming, if cows ever do such things. At any rate the cows paid no attention to the “co, boss” called by the children.
Laddie had fairly stumbled upon the hiding place of the cows, and as Russ and Rose reached the place they saw Laddie and his twin sister standing with their backs against a big tree, as Rose had stood when Jimsie barked at her.
In front of Laddie and Violet were the twocows, chewing their cud, as I have said. But as Russ looked he could see no signs that the cows were going to “hook” Violet, as she had shouted they were about to do.
However, just as Russ and Rose reached the place one of the cows shook her head violently and Vi screamed:
“There! Look! The old thing wants to hook me! Oh, Russ! Oh, Rose! Laddie! Why don’t you do something!”
“Don’t be silly!” exclaimed Russ, who had little patience with Violet sometimes. “She isn’t going to hook you!”
“But what makes her shake her head?” demanded Violet, half crying.
“She’s doing it to shake off the flies that are biting her,” answered Russ, for he observed that when the cow shook her head a cloud of flies rose from behind her ears. “She’s only doing it to get rid of the flies, Vi,” said Russ.
“That’s what I told her, but she wouldn’t believe me,” remarked Laddie. “I said the cows wouldn’t hook her.”
“Well, they looked as if they were going to hook me, anyhow,” said Violet, who wasnot frightened now that her older brother and sister were there with her.
“I’m glad we found the cows, anyhow,” said Rose. “Now we can drive ’em out with the others and we can call Ralph and his dog and go home.”
The two black cows that had wandered away from the rest of the herd seemed gentle enough when the children urged them out of the shady bushes and into the open pasture. The other ten cows were gathered down near the pasture bars, waiting for them to be opened.
Ralph and Jimsie came slowly up the hill from another part of the pasture, where they had gone to search for the missing animals.
“Oh, you found them! That’s good!” cried the farm boy, as he saw Rose and Laddie with Violet and Russ slowly driving the black cows. “You were pretty lucky,” he added. “Sometimes I’ve hunted an hour for lost cows.”
“I guess Vi thinks she’s lucky they didn’t hook her,” said Russ, with a laugh.
“What do you mean—hook her?” inquired Ralph.
THE TWO COWS FRIGHTENED VIOLET AND LADDIE.Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s.(Page97)
THE TWO COWS FRIGHTENED VIOLET AND LADDIE.Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s.(Page97)
THE TWO COWS FRIGHTENED VIOLET AND LADDIE.
Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s.(Page97)
Six Little Bunkers at Farmer Joel’s.
(Page97)
And when they told him he laughed and said:
“Our cows never hook anybody—they’re very gentle. But we have a bull in the barn that’d hook you if he could get out. And Mr. Todd’s got a bull, too.”
“Why can’t he get out?” Violet wanted to know.
“Because he’s chained fast to a ring in his nose,” answered Ralph. “He dassn’t pull too hard on the chain ’cause it hurts his nose. So he has to be good. But if he got loose he’d hook you all right.”
“He couldn’t hook me! I’d throw stones at him,” boasted Laddie.
“You’d better not try it if he ever does get loose,” warned Ralph. “He wouldn’t mind stones any more than if you chucked soft mud at him. He’s awful strong.”
“Well, if I saw him coming I’d run,” went on Laddie.
“That wouldn’t do much good,” said Ralph. “That bull can run faster than you. If you ever do see him and he’s loose, keep away from him or get on the other side of the fence as fast as you can. Once he nearlyhooked me, but I got to the fence first. He ran right into the fence with his head down and he bellowed like thunder.”
“Did it hurt him when he bunked into the fence?” asked Vi.
“I guess maybe he didn’t feel it any more than he’d feel a mosquito bite,” Ralph replied. “He’s tough, our bull is.”
“Goodness! I hope he never gets out,” murmured Rose, looking over her shoulder as if she feared, even then, the bull might be roaming somewhere about the pasture.
But he was not in sight and soon the children were quietly driving the cows along the road toward their barn on the farm of Ralph’s father. In the barn the cows would be milked and some of the milk would be sent to the cheese factory.
“Well, did you have a good time?” asked Mrs. Bunker, when her four children arrived at Farmer Joel’s house after having gone for the cows.
“Yes, it was fun. We had a little adventure,” said Rose, and she told about the missing cows.
Margy and Mun Bun listened with widelyopened eyes to the tale, and when it was over, Mun Bun exclaimed:
“I wish I’d been there!”
“Why?” asked his mother.
“Oh, I would give the cows some salt and they would love me,” he answered.
“Salt!” cried Russ. “Who ever heard of giving cows salt?”
“It would make their milk salty!” declared Laddie.
“Well, it didn’t,” said Margy. “’Cause when we went after eggs with Farmer Joel he gave his cows some salt and when he milked them he gave Mun Bun and me some of the milk and it wasn’t salty at all, so there!”
“Wasn’t it, Mother?” asked Rose, who seemed to share Laddie’s idea.
“No, of course not, child,” said Mrs. Bunker. “The farmers often give salt to their cows, sheep and horses. Animals are very fond of a small bit of salt. And while you were gone Farmer Joel gave his cows some lumps of rock salt which they licked with their tongues, and seemed very fond of.”
“Hum!” remarked Laddie. “That’s the first time I ever knew cows liked salt.” Butlater when he saw how horses in the pasture followed Adam North about when he went to “salt” them, and when the little boy watched the sheep eagerly licking the salt in their field, then he knew that his mother was right.
Happy days at Farmer Joel’s followed one after another. The six little Bunkers never had such delightful times. There seemed to be something new to do all the while. They roamed about the fields and woods, they gathered eggs, they fed the chickens, and sometimes they had picnics. They waded in the brook and, once or twice, fell in and got muddy. But this was expected.
One place that the children stayed away from was the part of the farm where Mr. Todd kept several hives of bees. The children knew that bees stung and they did not want this to happen to them.
About a week after the Bunkers had come to stay at Farmer Joel’s, Russ and Laddie were going to the brook to play with their water wheel when suddenly they heard a loud buzzing, humming sound in the air. At first they thought it was a distant aeroplane, but, looking up, they could see none. However,over in the direction of the bee orchard Russ saw a dark cloud in the air. The buzzing sound seemed to come from this dark cloud.
Then Russ knew what it was—a flight of bees.
“Oh, they’re running away!” he cried. “We must tell Farmer Joel!”
He and Laddie hastened toward the house and told the news. Mr. Todd ran out. As soon as he heard the buzzing sound and saw the moving dark cloud he cried:
“They’re swarming! I don’t want to lose them! I must try to get them back!” Into the house he hurried, to come out with a queer, smoking machine in his hand. Over his head Farmer Joel wore a broad-brimmed straw hat with a veil of mosquito netting coming down over his shoulders.