CHAPTER IXTHE BEE-RANCH
Onemorning Weezy ran over to Mr. Arnesten’s to play with homely little Olga and some fluffy young chickens; and the other children set off for Captain Bradstreet’s bee-ranch, three miles away.
“You see, it isn’t a road at all, Molly,” said Pauline, as they followed the path leading from the camp; “it is only the bottom of a brook.”
Molly turned up the sole of her left shoe, and carefully examined it, to Pauline’s great amusement.
“Oh, there’s no danger of wet feet, Miss Prudence. The path is dry all summer; but in the winter rains the floods come tearingdown from the upper canyon where we are going.”
“Then how do the people get out of the canyon, Pauline?”
“There aren’t any people, Molly, besides the Wassons. Mr. and Mrs. Wasson don’t get out; they stay in.”
“All winter? Why, Polly Bradstreet, I should think they’d be lonesome enough to die.”
“Oh, the rains don’t last very long at a time, Molly,” said Paul, helping her over a fallen log; “and when the brook isn’t too high Mr. Wasson can drive along the bed of it with Punch and Judy.”
“Those mules are theknowingestlittle animals,” put in Pauline enthusiastically. “Mr. Wasson can do anything with them. Once he drove them out to Santa Luzia with a load of honey, when the water was up to their knees a part of the way.”
“What makes the Wassons stay in the canyon in the rainy season, Pauline?”
“To take care of the bees.”
“To take care of the bees, Pauline? What do they do to them? You talk as if bees had to be fed and watered like so many cows.”
“Not like cows exactly, Molly; but they do have to be fed and watered. Mr. Wasson sows alfalfa for them to make honey from when the wild sage blossoms are gone. There’s Mr. Wasson now, in front of the house.”
They were approaching a small cottage which stood alone on a ranch. Before the house were rows of square redwood boxes, and Mr. Wasson was bending over one of these boxes. He was thin and dark, and had long gray hair, and heavy, arched eyebrows, which reminded Molly of little birch canoes turned upside down.
“Good-morning, Mr. Wasson,” said Pauline, walking up to him.
The man straightened himself with a quick jerk.
“Oh! it’s the cap’n’s little girl, is it? Plagued if you didn’t ’most scare me out of a year’s growth.”
Pauline and the others laughed in concert, for Mr. Wasson was exceedingly tall.
“This is Molly Rowe,” said Pauline affably; “and this is her brother Kirke. They’re visiting at our camp, and Paul and I have brought them to see the ranch.”
“Always pleased to have folks come, particularly young folks.—Mother,” Mr. Wasson glanced over his shoulder and shouted,—“Hello, mother, here’s company!”
“That’s Mr. Wasson’s wife; he always calls her mother,” whispered Paul to Kirke, as a woman appeared at the door of the house and hastily retreated.
Mr. Wasson looked at his guests with a comical grin.
“Mother likes to fix herself up before strangers come in. Women are made that way.”
“Oh! we don’t want to go into the house yet, Mr. Wasson,” interposed Molly with ready tact. “We want to see what you are doing to the hives.”
“I’m lifting the covers, miss.”
“To give the bees an airing, Mr. Wasson?”
“Yes, miss; I’m drying off the hives. We’ve had drenching fogs lately, and I’m afraid my bees will catch cold.”
Molly looked surprised. Kirke, less on his good behavior, laughed outright.
“Who ever heard of a bee with a cold?” he said. “Do they sneeze, I wonder? You must be joking, Mr. Wasson.”
Aren’t you afraid of being stung?“Aren’t you afraid of being stung?”Page109
“Aren’t you afraid of being stung?”Page109
“Aren’t you afraid of being stung?”
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“Not at all. I’ve lost lots of bees with chills. These covers I put on at night to keep out the dampness, but I take ’em off when the sun shines.”
Now that the covers had been removed, the children could see that the top of each hive was made of wooden slats. Mr. Wasson pried up one of these slats to show the well-filled honeycomb attached to it.
“Tut, tut! there’s a little mould here,” he said, passing his finger along the cells without heeding the bees flying about them.
Molly drew back.
“Aren’t you afraid of being stung, Mr. Wasson?”
“Afraid, miss? Oh, no! my bees and I are good friends.”
“Weren’t you ever stung, Mr. Wasson?” asked Kirke uneasily, as a bee whizzed about his ear.
“Wasn’t I ever stung, sir?”—Mr. Wasson put back the comb with an odd grimace,—“well,young man, accidents will happen. There are five hundred of these stands, and I go over them three times every spring.”
“Go over them, Mr. Wasson?” repeated Molly.
“Yes, miss; I clean them, and make sure that each hive has a queen. It’s no fool of a job! The year I was sick mother tended to them, and she hasn’t had any hands since.”
Molly opened her eyes, and glanced at Pauline.
“No hands to speak of, I mean, miss. She strained ’em, I tell her, when she strained the honey.”
Mr. Wasson smiled broadly at his own jest. His smile was the only broad thing about him.
“Oh, that was too bad, Mr. Wasson,” said Molly, smiling from sympathy.
“Mother’s come to the door with her starched gown on,” he continued facetiously. “She expects you to go in. I always do as mother says. She’s brigadier-general, and I’m only a private.”
“Isn’t he odd, Molly?” whispered Pauline as they followed Mr. Wasson along the beaten path.
Molly squeezed Pauline’s hand, and Paul and Kirke grinned.
They found Mrs. Wasson as short and plump as her husband was tall and spare. Her one straight line was her mouth, enclosed between two curving wrinkles like a dash in parentheses.
Having given the children all the chairs the house afforded, she seated herself upon the bed. Mr. Wasson sat upon the stove, which, fortunately for him, had no fire.
But the next moment he sprang up to bring his visitors water from the Mexicanollaswinging upon the porch; and this reminded Mrs. Wasson that they might be hungry, and she bustled to the “cooler,” or “window cupboard,” at the north for a loaf of rye bread and a plate of honey.
Molly thought she had never eaten anything nicer than those slices of bread spread with ranch butter and amber honey; but when Kirke looked longingly at a third slice, her sense of politeness took alarm, and she asked Pauline in a whisper if they ought not to go.
Pauline arose quickly.
“We’ve had a splendid time, Mrs. Wasson. Thank you ever so much for the luncheon.”
“We always have a splendid time here,” added Paul, stepping over the threshold. “What a frolic we had last summer with Mèdor! Where is that dog, Mrs. Wasson? I haven’t seen him to-day.”
“O Master Paul! haven’t you heard? Our Mèdor is dead!” Mrs. Wasson brushed away a tear with her purple calico sleeve. “Would you like to visit his grave? It’s to the left, under the weeping willow.”
“Indeed we should!” cried the twins in a breath; “Mèdor was a dear old dog!”
“There never was a better,” responded Mr. Wasson, leading the way. “He came to us a little puppy. We lived in ’Frisco then, on Telegraph Hill, and we’ve owned him ever since.”
“Father says if he could spell ‘able’ he’d hire a poet to write Mèdor’s epitaph,” panted Mrs. Wasson, trying to keep up with the rest.
“I bought the willow for him at ‘The Forestry,’” said Mr. Wasson, stopping beside a small square yard enclosed by a picket fence. And he pointed to a mound within, on which was marked in cobble-stones the nameMèdor. A board served as headstone, and on this in black letters was painted:—
“MÈDOR, OUR DOG,Died April 20th, 1896,Aged 12 Years.”
“If ever a dog deserved an epitaph that dog did,” said Mr. Wasson seriously. “Mother wanted me to get one up myself; but, land! I couldn’t. I can manage bees better than I can manage poetry.”
The boys retired early that night in the tent that they shared with Captain Bradstreet. A little later, as Molly and Pauline were undressing in the end of the parlor tent shut off by the Indian blankets, Molly suddenly exclaimed,—
“O Polly, I’ve thought of something! Let’s write an epitaph for Mèdor. Don’t you believe it would please the Wassons?”
“Of course it would, Molly. It would tickle them to death.”
“Comfort them, you should say, Polly. Epitaphs don’t tickle.”
“That depends upon the epitaph, doesn’t it?” asked Pauline, yawning. “How wide open your eyes are, Molly Rowe! I’m going to tuck you into bed this minute.”
Long after Pauline had floated into dream-land, Molly lay awake beside her little sister, listening to the voices of the night in the leafy canyon. She recognized the hooting of an owl; but what was that other sound, something like a laugh and a cough and a cry all in one? It made her flesh creep. She was thankful when Mrs. Davidson appeared with a lighted candle.
“O Mrs. Davidson! what is that dreadful noise?” she whispered.
“That noise, Molly? Oh, that is only the barking of the coyotes.”
“Oh! do you suppose they’ll get in, Mrs. Davidson?”
“In here? Why, my dear child, you couldn’tdrivethem in. They’re the greatest cowards in the world.”
“But they act somad, Mrs. Davidson.”
“They have a sad habit of prowling around Mr. Arnesten’s chicken-yard, Molly, but they won’t harm us. Don’t mind their howling. Try to go to sleep.”