The Keeper of the Bees, page 33
At that minute the boiling hose was beating a hole big enough to have drowned a calf right in the marigold bed. The little Scout danced from one foot to the other, hanging to it with all the strength of a pair of unbelievably tough young arms.
“Tell the truth about little Mary yet! Say you pushed her! I know you did. The Bee Master knew you did, but he couldn’t prove it. I’ll let ’em sting the everlasting liver out of you If you don’t tell the truth about that yet!” The third German got in its work in the tender muscles close to an eye.
“Yes! Yes!” panted the shrinking creature. “Yes! The hose for God’s sake! Turn the hose on me!”
“Drop flat on the ground!” shouted the Scout Master. Get on your belly and crawl! Crawl like the worm you are! I won’t turn the hose on our bees. Get down, Nebuchadnezzar, get on your belly and eat grass! Rat dirt, for all I care! Then you can start inching! You can start inching along like a poor inch worm! Head for me and I’ll juice you up enough that they’ll not get you! Turn the hose on my friends, I guess not! Hold your nose! It’s going to snow!”
Full force the hose struck the miserable object groveling on the ground, struck her, played over her and knocked a few bees that were flying low out of the way. A pitiful creature came crawling up the mountain, gasping for breath, one eye slowly closing, the pain of three stings on the head almost unbearable torture, bees by the thousand roaring above her. Slowly the little Scout backed up the mountain, dragging the twisting hose, pausing every few seconds to play it again on the victim. By and by, sufficient distance was reached to permit an armistice.
“Now you stop right where you are!” commanded the Scout Master, with a deft twirl cutting down the water. “Stop right where you are!”
“No!” cried the girl, struggling to her knees. “I’ll not stop where I am! I’ll get you and I’ll wring the head right off of your neck. You little Devil! You vile little Devil!”
Flip went the nozzle, spang came the water squarely on the girl’s head and shoulders. Down she went.
“So that’s how you feel about it? That’s the way you thank me for saving you, all lying and stealing like you are! You didn’t know I could magic bees, did you? You didn’t know I could run around on the other side of them and spray ’em gentle until I’d drive ’em on you, did you? You didn’t know I got a better trick than that up my sleeve yet, did you?”
Once more the girl raised halfway to her knees, and once more the hose came roaring threateningly near.
“Now you pause,” said the little Scout, “pause in your mad career exactly where you are until you get me right”
From the soiled string around the neck of the little Scout the police whistle came into play. In reply to its shrill note there burst from behind the lilac bush, from behind the poinsettias, from behind the plumbago three wild eyed, wildly dancing young fiends tuned by what they had seen to the spirit of battle.
The Scout Master stuck the police whistle in the front of a soiled blouse.
“Scout One!” came the terse order, and Fat Old Bill drew up and saluted.
“Scout Two!”
The Nice Child bounded into place.
“Scout Three!”
Angel Face ranged in line.
“Scout Three,” said the Scout Master, “get a-hold of this hose! It’s about wiggled the wind out of me. Help me train it close to the head of the young lady doing her devorions in our presence. My neck’s going to be wrung. ‘I shall holler for assistance. I shall meet her with resistance!’”
“Yes, your neck’s going to be wrung!” puffed Fat Old Bill. “Yes, your neck’s going to be wrung! Let her try it! Let her try it! What will she get, fellers?”
In unison the Scouts shouted: “The Limit!”
It was at that instant that the police whistle and the commotion awakened Jamie, and it was an instant later, as he came around Margaret Cameron’s house from the back, that he met John Carey coming around it from the front.
He said to him: “There’s something going on over in the bee garden. I think maybe the Scouts are having a sham battle. Keep behind the bushes and follow me. You might be interested in what you see and hear. Sometimes; it gets good!”
So the two men slipped through the gate, and undercover of the shrubs and bushes, came down very close to the flower wall behind the jacqueranda, where they paused.
“Scout One!” commanded the Scout Master, “tell it to the probate judge. Did you hear the witness before you say that she was a liar?”
“I’ll tell the world I did! And she said she stole the papers, and she was trying to burn ’em so she could steal this garden. You bet I’ll tell the judge!”
“Scout Two!” said the Scout Master, and Jamie and John Carey, with eyes as wide as the eyes of the youngsters, leaned forward and peered through the bushes.
“Sure! Sure, I heard her!” said Angel Face. “Sure I heard her say she lied, and she was trying to steal this place and she pushed little Mary. Sure, I heard her! Sure we saw you sic the bees on her! Sure we saw ’em ping her on the dome! Sure we know she got what was coming to her! Sure we’ll tell the judge!”
“Scout Three,” said the Scout Master. “What are you good for? Pit it in Mamma’s hand!”
In the excitement the hose was yielded to the manipulations of Scout Three and he had all he could do to manage it. The little Scout reached over and lowered the pressure.
“Same as the rest. Everything. From start to finish I heard it all. Sure I can. All about the lies. All about the stealing. All about the little girl she pushed. Sure I can tell any old judge!”
The Scout Master rocked from heel to toe and bent up and down and cupped a hand over each bony knee and emitted a war cry that would have reached fairly well around the circle of the globe had it been properly delivered into a rightly tuned radio transmitter.
“And I’ll tell the world what the Bee Master told me, and the stuff in the incinerator is safe, with three swarms of bees standing guard, and if four of us can’t handle you, I know where to get somebody that can! Get up, worm. Get up, liar! Get up, thief! Get up, you nasty thing! Get on to your feet! Scout One, go to the telephone and call 0075. Call the taxi the Bee Master and I always take to come here quick. Scout Two, stay with Scout Three, Scout Three, you keep the hose right where you got it. If she moves let her have all of it. Don’t be skimpy. The lady doesn’t like California; it’s too rough. So she wants me to pack her trunk. Excuse me!” and the Scout Master disappeared into the home of the Bee Master.
When the telephoning was finished, between Scout One and the Scout Master, the steamer trunk was dragged to the middle of the living room and the clothing of the interloper was thrown into it. Off Jamie’s dresser the toilet articles were swept into the toilet case. A hat and coat were snatched from the closet and the traveling paraphernalia was dragged on to the front porch, and with wide eyes behind a wall of honeysuckle, Jamie MacFarlane and John Carey stood half paralyzed and watched the proceedings.
Sooner than they would have believed, the taxi drew up at the gate and the Scout Master stepping like a half-drunken dandy doing an Irish reel, with a swagger and a sweep from side to side, and arms set akimbo when the hands were not busy distributing elaborate gestures on the atmosphere gave the command: “Put that trunk up on the seat beside you. Put that suitcase and that dressing bag in back. I’ll direct this picture just like my dad directs in the big studio. Mr. Taxi-man, take this coat and put it on the lady and take this hat and put it on her, and put your arm around her and if she can’t walk, carry her out and put her in the taxi. Take your taxi right down to the Santa Fe Station and if she needs help, help her get a ticket to any place in Pennsylvania she says she is going and be darned quick about it into the bargain!”
The Scout Master stood still until the taxi disappeared, then turned and said: “Scouts, I thank you! I’m off for today. I got business, but I’ll not forget that it’s my treat and I’ll make it a double header! I’ll tell the world I’ll make it a humdinger. A dollar won’t touch it. And don’t a one of you forget a word of what you’ve heard or what you’ve seen. There’s a slim chance that this may be the real thing. There’s just a chance that you go to court and tell it to the probate judge like I said, but just for this minute, I’m through with you and I want you to disband and speed. I’ll settle your score tomorrow and you can all step mighty high, ’cause this day there ain’t been no make-believe. You been Scouts, and you been real Scouts what’s done a real job, and done it up brown! They is just one thing. Remember your sacred oaths. Remember your vitals and all that. Remember if you tell, you’ll be cut an’ cast. Take my blessing and disband. And, Scout Three, if you would run down and turn off the hydrant before you go, I’d be glad, ’cause I don’t care if I tell you fellows, that this has been some skirmish, and I’m all in! Now furnish your own music an’ march to it.”
The Scout Master stood straight, watching the gate and down the road until Scout Three and Scout Two, and Fat Old Bill bringing up the rear, all gesticulating, all talking at once, disappeared. Then, headlong, the little Scout fell face down in the dirt and began to cry right out loud, sobbing, shuddering, shrill little screaming terrified cries that broke Jamie’s heart, and he tore through the honeysuckles and gathered the little Scout up in his arms and sat down on the bench under the jacqueranda and held his small burden tight and rained uncounted kisses all over the little face and head.
The tongue of a Scotsman is usually rather stiff, but in that tense instant Jamie’s ran away with him.
“You little thing!” he said. “You brave little thing! You’ve done it. You’ve saved the Bee Master’s gift for Us. John Carey was with me back there and both of us saw and heard enough to send that woman to the penitentiary. So don’t you cry any more! Let me hold you tight and rest a minute. It was a big strain. It was too much for you, you poor little darling!”
Just for an instant Jamie thought the burden in his arms was going to spring entirely from him, the stiffening and the straightening were so abrupt.
“Little darling!’” scoffed the Scout Master. “‘Little darling! Next thing I reckon you’ll be calling me ‘Kiddo’! That’s what she called me. If anybody ever calls me ‘Kiddo’ in all this world again, I’ll kick their teeth in! That’s that!”
The Scout Master hunted for something that would be good to dry eyes on, and failing to find it, sat very still while Jamie used his handkerchief.
“I don’t know what you are going to do with me,” gulped the little Scout. “I reckon I’ve just about wrecked the marigold bed, and it was on your side of the line.” “Well, never mind the marigolds,” said Jamie. “We can make up the bed and sow some more seed. Never mind the marigolds! Tell me what happened.”
“It was just all I could do,” said the Scout Master, “to handle that hose when I had it turned on full and I was scared of my life it would bust. It just wriggled and twisted like a snake, and I had to keep it close to her because, if they really began to close in, I had to beat ’em off, but I wasn’t going to do it for pinging on the bean only two or three times, ’cause she had to be hurt some or she would not have come clean. I wouldn’t have minded if it had ’a’ been on my own side, but I hated awfully to tear up yours. You can take the hose right now and go over to my side and beat up a hole just as big as I tore up on yours.”
“You surprise me,” said Jamie. “A head as level as yours usually is! How would it help me in getting back my marigold bed to tear up a hole as big as that on your land? It wouldn’t be sensible.”
The little Scout thought it over, then looked up at Jamie with wide, tired eyes.
“Well, I can see how it would be just” came the reply. “Possibly,” said Jamie, “but justice and good hard common sense don’t always agree.”
Suddenly the little Scout brightened.
“Well, anyway, you aren’t the only one that got some ruination worked on you. Look what she went an’ did to the Queen’s chest! Just go in and look what she went and did to my property!”
“To the ‘Queen’s chest’?” said Jamie. “What do you mean?”
“What do I mean?” cried the little Scout. “I mean she had been to the shed before you locked it up, an’ got the ax, and she had it hid in the house. She broke open the Queen’s chest prying it with the ax.”
“Oh, boy!” said Jamie, “that’s rough! But don’t you feel bad. I’ll have it repaired so you will never know the difference If I have to have the whole front reproduced.” “She busted the top around the lock and where the secret spring went,” said the little Scout. “The thing about it is that I don’t like things smashed and patched up. I like ’em when they’re whole and the way you got ’em give to you by one you love.”
“Well, don’t you mind,” said Jamie. “There couldn’t have been anything new about that chest. I think it must have been about five hundred years old to begin with, and anyway, people can do things so wonderfully these days in such repair work. If it’s only around the lock, I’m sure we can get it fixed so nobody will ever know it.” The little Scout used Jamie’s handkerchief on a pair of red eyes.
“All right, then,” the assent came with one of the youngster’s lightning changes. “All right, then. We’ll get it fixed, but we didn’t need a patched chest to remember her by. We got the whole garden for a souvenir of that lady!”
Suddenly the little Scout began to laugh.
“My! didn’t she look wonderful when the taxi man put her hat and coat on her? Wasn’t she a spiffy lady? I wonder, if Nannette had seen her, if she would have said she looked keen?”
“No,” he said, “I don’t think Nannettes’ favorite adjective would have worked. I don’t think even she would have thought the lady on her departure looked keen.” “She’ll have to make a straight shot for the dressing room,” said the little Scout, “and put on her war paint and feathers the best she can.”
“Do you really think she will go?” asked Jamie.
The little Scout heaved a deep sigh.
“I don’t give two Apache war whoops whether she goes or whether she stays. The pony I’m betting my money on in this race is one that tells me that that lady ain’t ever coming back to the Sierra Madre Apiary. She’s had her dose of treat ’em rough, and I bet she ain’t weeping for more, not a mountain pressure hose, nor Black Germans in the eye, nor nothing! She got her share, if I did have to tear up your marigolds to give it to her!”
“For goodness sake! don’t worry about a hole as big as a wash tub when you have just got through saving me an acre!”
“All right, then,” said the Scout Master. “If that’s the way you feel about it, it suits me. Do you mind if I just fool around a little while?”
Jamie knew what that meant, he meant that his little partner would go and creep up on the foot of his bed and fall sound asleep, and he thought that would be the best thing that could possibly happen. So he said he did not mind in the least because he and John Carey were going back to hive the bees. The Scout Master slid to the ground. Suddenly Jamie felt a pair of small, wiry arms around his neck that hugged him up so tight that he did not know but that his head was going to be amputated. Then for the third time, squarely on his mouth, he got another little hard, hot kiss of a brand and delivery that he knew he was never going to forget.
The little Scout started toward the house, but only a few yards had been covered before there was a halt, and the small person whirled. “Quick! How goofy! We forgot the incinerator! There’s Highland Mary and little Mary and all the valuable papers soaking in the ashes and maybe some fire under them! You got to get ’em quick, if I have to turn the hose on you while you’re doing it! Whatever it was she wanted to burn up so bad, why that’s exactly what we must have to prove that what’s give us is ours. You can’t tell it to the probate judge very’ good without the papers in the incinerator, and it doesn’t seem as if you’d be placid enough to tackle the incinerator right now without risking a mixture of Black Germans and Italians—an’ Germans can shoot straight!”
“You go on to your fooling around,” said Jamie. “I’ll jump into the bee clothes. Maybe I’ll put the old raincoat over them, and I may take the bee mask, since things are so stirred up, but don’t you worry, I’ll reach the incinerator and I’ll get everything in it. I’ll not stop to hive the bees until everything is on the kitchen table and spread out to dry.”
Jamie raced to the back porch to prepare himself, and, as he rounded the corner of the house, John Carey came walking up the back steps trailing ashes in his wake, and set the incinerator on the back porch.
“I thought I’d better get this and start the stuff to drying out. I didn’t want the job of taking anything out for fear something might be lost or missing. I want you to do that yourself.”
So Jamie stepped to the living-room door and called in: “John Carey has gotten the incinerator for us. He’s a right real bee immune!”
“I’ll tell the world he is,” came the voice of the little Scout, but it sounded muffled as if it were coming from fairly deep in a pillow.
The two men gathered up some soft towels and, working swiftly, dried the documents, the bank books, the valuable papers, the letters and the pictures that they found, and spread them on the kitchen table. Then they hurried to the shed to arrange new hives for the swarming bees. By the time they reached them, the two swarms that had gone out were weighting down the branches around their queens and only needed a slight smoking to numb them so that their transference to the hives could be easily managed. As for the Black Germans, they were still nervous, but they were a distance away, the hot sun was rapidly drying the water around their hives, the roar of the hose had ceased, the scent they disliked had been removed, and so they were calming down as speedily as might have been expected of bees of their irritable temperament.
As they worked, the two men talked to each other, breathless exchanges, exclamations mostly. What a listener would have heard, ran like this:
“Can you beat it! That little Scout tackled her single-handed and made her come clean! I’d give a fifty-dollar bill to have seen the whole show!”
