"Hold on! hold on!" the man howled. "Jest handle 'em gently, can't ye?"

The Chickering set, as well as Merriwell's friends, heard him.

"Oh, yes! we'll handle 'em gently!" snarled Skelding, slapping at one of the stinging things and crushing it with his hand. He saw then that it was a bee. He jerked his hand away and stuck his fingers into his mouth.

Then jumped up and began again to hop around.

"It run its stinger into my finger an inch!" he growled.

"Hold on! hold on!" the old man was howling.

"I'm holding on!' cried Rupert, smashing away at a handful of bees which seemed to be settling down on him all at once.

"You're killing 'em!" screeched the old woman.

"Yes, we're killing 'em!" Skelding answered, flailing away as if he had gone crazy. "I'd like to kill a million in a minute! I can't kill them fast enough! I'd like to welt 'em with a club and smash a regiment at a blow!"

Lew Veazie threw himself on the ground, drew his hat down over his head, and began to kick and shriek.

"You're jest a tantalizin' 'em!" panted the farmer. Merriwell stopped and laughed. The whole thing was too ridiculously funny for him to do otherwise.

"They're swarmin'!" shouted the boy, rattling away with the bell as if his life depended on it.

"Yes, I see they are!" howled Julian Ives. "They're swarming all over me!"

"Don't hurt 'em!" the farmer begged. He was only a few feet away, and panting on, almost breathless.

"Don't kill 'em!" whined the old woman. "They're my bees!"

Her words reached Lew Veazie. For a moment the kicking legs were stilled, though the hat was not withdrawn.

"Take 'em away then, pleathe!" he begged, from under the hat. "I don't want to hurt your beethe, but they're hurting me! Take 'em away, pleathe!"

The boy stopped his jangling bell.

"They are honey bees!" he said. Then added, as if he feared this might not be clear to the intellects of city-bred youths: "They make honey!"

"I'll tantalize them!" Skelding fiercely exclaimed, striking at the bees that were hovering round his head. "I'll treat 'em gently! Oh, yes! I'll pick them off very tenderly and put them in your lap, old lady! I don't think! Keep your old bees at home!"

"But they're swarming!" the old farmer exclaimed. "They're going out to hunt a new hive. We've been follerin' 'em."

Then Lew Veazie began to bellow again, more frantically than ever. A large crowd was gathering, men hurrying from all directions, Merriwell and his friends had arrived on the scene.

"Ow-wow!" Veazie shrieked. "They're worthe than ever!"

For a few seconds he had not been troubled except by the stings previously given, which pained intensely. Merriwell looked down and saw a big bunch of bees gathering along the top of Veazie's collar at the back.

"They're killing me!" Veazie screeched, rubbing a hand into this ma.s.s and leaping to his feet.

But the pile grew. The bees seemed to drop by scores right out of the air upon him. He started to run. The old woman began to shriek, and the boy commenced again to jangle the bell.

"You've got the queen!" howled the old man. "Jest keep still a minute!

You have got the queen!"

"Is this a card-game?" drawled Browning.

"Lew Veazie is the little joker this time!" droned Dismal.

"That's because he is so sweet!" declared Bink. "Don't you know the boy said these are honey bees? They're going to carry 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 ma.s.s 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 pail as if they were grains of gold.

"I've got 'em!" he triumphantly declared. "This is my fu'st swarm this spring. I thought the blamed things was goin' to git away, but I've got 'em. Giner'ly they light on a tree when they're swarmin', or on somethin' green!"

"That's why they struck Veazie!" some one shouted from the crowd.

"Can I get up?" Veazie gasped. "I'm wetter than the thea!"