Joe-Dad's Bee Tree AN EPISODE if? I IN WOODS ► AND WATER J I EXPLOITS < ► j £ By < r Eraest McGaifey 1 112 Author ofVoemj of 3 | Gun and Hod. Etc. 2 i t; I (Copyright, by Joseph li. lk> w les. "See that," said old Joe-Dad, as he Tose from the skiff and peered into the surrounding timber. "Mmm," went on the ancient "pusher," "I reckon they's a bee-tree round here somewhere's. How'd some honey taste on them llap-jacks we're bavin' at camp?" "W£ve got plenty o' rope," said the ■"piudpr," knocking the ashes out of hi^^nort-stemmed pipe, "and two good traes. We may have to build a "smudge," and agin mebby we won't have to." "You must have been an interested party in some bee scrape, Joe," was Ely answer. "Fur awhile, fur awhile," was the ""pusher's" response. "Yes, I reckon I was about the most pizenousl.v inter •ested feller in a chunk o' rope that ever happened into the timber." "Why, that sounds like a story, Joe," said I, "tell me about it." "Well," begun Joe-Dad, it was this a-wa.v. I was young, an' 1 wuz green as to bees. I wuz the best climber nt'Xt to a squirrel that ever shinned up a saplin'. I'd lived in the woods, an' jit 1 wuz so busy huntin' an ilsli "" /S ' ' THE RCPE! HOLLERS I. In' that I'd never been huntin' fer bee trees more'n four or five times." "So one night oyer comes Hob Early to the cabin, an' he's got a bee tree sighted that's plumb full o' honey to liear him tell it, an' nothin'll do but 1 fer him an' pap to git out after it next mornin.' Hut the old man's got n line o' traps he's got to 'run,' au' he says fer me togo 'long 'ith Hob. So bright an' soon the next mornin' :iob an' me's pinted fer this here bee ree. Hob's got an ax, I've got an ax, n' Hob's carryin' a long rope." "What's the rope fer, Bob," sez I. "Jist to hang ourselves ef we miss ndin' that bee tree," says Bob. "I didn't say nothin' to that, fer I iew Hob Early was raised on bees, 112 that he wasn't packin' that quoil rope fer fun." "An" so perty soon we got to a clear down in the timber, an' Hob took (quint through the bresh, an' at last sez, 'straight out from this here to'rds the river.' So we starts to |igh through the awfuilest tangle ever seen. Huck-bresh, black •y briers, pieces o' swamp, old logs the devil's own mix-up o' wood an' >r. Finally old Hoi) halts clost. le river, an' lookin' up at the edge tn openin' in the woods he sez le hit fer, here she is.' " ken T squinted up, an' there was biggest and slickest sycamore I '\ver seen, no branches low down, forty feet or so there / ouirrible big dead limb stickin' tha the main trunk. An' from goirt'rnb you could see the bees •Tha comin' out, an' says Hob, ••Ttioncy.'" etickl\ another good-sized limb dead bees appinted a committee to investigate. Something like twelve or fifteen thousand bees wuz on this committee, an' the first thing they did to me wuz to jist sting me once for good luck. 'The rope,' hol lers 1, an' then I sliet my mouth an' eyes fer fear the bees'd start in on me there. They cert'ny did sting me awful. 1 thought I'd fall off'n the limb. I wuz skeered to try to slide down the sycamore, cuz I'd a dropped forty feet an' broke my neck certain. The saplin' o' course had none with the dead limb, an' thar I wuz forty feet up in the crotch, an' gittin' stung at the rate o' six hundred stingers a second." "Well, Hob, he jist nacherly gits the rope untied from the saplin' as soon as he kin, an' quoils her up an' sends it across the limb so's 1 ketch It the first sling. Hut by that time I'JJJ one big bunch o' pizen from them stings, an' partickler my head and neck. Pears like they mostly settled on my back, an' the back o' my neck, an' when I got the rope, they sort o' shifted an' commenced to sting my hands." "Well, sir, 1 didn't lose any time gittin' a hitch to the limb with that rope an' when I slid down her I cert'ny perty near set fire to it 1 went down so tarnation quick." "Talk about PAIN! Why I was jist the painfullest feller in the woods. Hob grabbed me the minute 1 lit, an' be had a big gob o' honey in his hands. He rubbed that honey into the stings, an' I want to say right here that in two hours 1 wuz all right, though I wuz some sore. Hut the honey took the pizon out, an' after a couple o' days I wouldn't a knowed I'd a-been stung at all. But lawz-a me, I'll never furgit settin' up thar a hundred feet from the ground, cr say forty feet, an' gettin' peppered by them Lees." "An' so you see ef It hadn't a-heen fer the rope we had along, I'd a bad to jump an' break my neck er stuck thar tell them bees had jist nacherly stung me plumb off'n the limb." "After I'd got shet a little o' the pain, by Hob rubbin' in the honey, he sez to me, 'What do you think of a I rope in raid in' a bee tree?' " "Ami what did you say to that, Joe- Dad?" was my inquiry. "I sez tlie next time I goes after a bee tree, I 'lowed I'd pack a ladder, if they wuzn't no objections." RELIVING HIS WAR DAY 3. Old Soldier Camps Before Hie Fire In Falrmount Park. What Is the secret of the magic power of a crackling fire to conjure up memories of days that are dead? The answer to this abstruse question may be left to psychologists. Few will deny that a crackling fire has such power. In the leaping sparks and the reddening logs one finds that stimulus to muse and to meditate in moods that range from melancholy to merriment. This, in brief, is the line of thought that obsesses Maj. James H. Work man, a civil war veteran, who recently determined to become a hermit. In the winter of life his mind harked back to the days of battle and sudden death. He longed once more for the alluring freedom of the simple life of a Maj. James H. Workman in Camp Again. soldier. He determined to live once more, as nearly as possible, the l|fe of his soldier days by camping in the open, beside a roaring lire, to prepare his own meals, to bid defiance to cold j and wet and, in imagination at least,' to campaign again with Sherman and Grant. Had the old soldier been friendless and alone ho might have buried him self permanently in some secluded spot and reveled in his campfire dreaming until "taps" sounded for the last time. Hut the major is blessed with a devoted wife and a host of: friends, and no one would listen to his 1 suggestion that he retire to the woods j to end his days with the birds and the j squirrels for companions. So he com-1 promised by pitching his camp in an out-of-the-way ravine in Pairmount | park, Philadelphia, says the New York ! Tribune, where he is as completely off j th«» beaten track as he would be in the | wilderness. The park authorities hu-1 mored the old soldier's whim. Joyfully the major selected his campground, in a picturesque spot, where the trees shelter him to some extent from the wind, and here he can be found, no matter how severe the weather. AN INSPIRING SIGHT. The Fighting on Lookout Mountain and the Charge Up Mission Ridge. I carried a gun and took an active part in both battles of Lookout Moun tain and Mission Ridge, writes a cor respondent of the National Tribune, being in Carlin's First brigade, First division, Fourteenth corps, which was the extreme right of Thomas' line in the valley facing Missionary ridge, from which position I watched the ad vance of Hooker's men as they drove the confederates around the north face of Lookout mountain. The lines on the side of the mountain were occa -1 /* v"I "Hooker's Men Drove the Confeder ates Around the Face of Lookout Mountain." sionally obscured by the lowering clouds. But Hooker's brave men were running out of ammunition, and our brigade, being the nearest, was or dered to his assistance, carrying an extra lot of < iti-iridges. We climbed directly up the steep sides, and were in time to assist in the final charge, as darkness closed over the scene. The confederates fell back, abandoning the mountain during the night, a fact we lid net discover until nest nioruing. It The major will first offer the visitor a cup ot coffee. He never forgets that every time a halt was made In •war time coffee, the great recuperator, was In requisition. Tne coffee he bolls over the blazing logs In true camp style. If you catch him at meal time he will offer you a share of the con tents of his haversack, another habit he acquired in the days of the '6os. He Is not hermit of the kind that shuns society. The campfire was what the old soldier craved. The more visitors he lias to his open-air home the better pleased he is. Hut the veteran is per fectly contented when alone. He re clines for hours on a park bench that he has moved to the spot. Behind this he has Improvised a wind shield, and in the little clearing in front he makes his log Are. Lying thus he gazes steadily into Lie blaze, dreaming of the old stirring days of the war, living once more in the halcyon time when life was like wine that bubbles and sparkles in the glass. The musing old soldier sees in the blaze the figures of men in blue leaping to the charge, he catches the glint of steel as the yelling lines clash and hears the sound of cannon as the artillery gets to work. In the same magic element the ma jor conjures up the dark days he spent in Libby prison, the scenes of carnage In the many battles In which his regi ment, Rush's Lancers, took part. From the heart of the fire sad faces rise to greet him once more. Some are marred and red with wounds. He sees them as he last saw them, lying dead or dying on a hundred battle fields. Old comrades of the camp and the field, fellow veterans of the Grand Army who have preceded him into the beyond, privates, captains, majors, colonels, a great army of them, they rise up before the old man, as he muses in front of his campfire, salute him gravely and pass upward with the smoke. The soldier hermit says he will live by his campfire all the winter, no mat ter what the weather. Although he hasn't been heard to say so, those who know him believe he would be quite happy in the thought of being found dead by the fire in the ravine, for in so dying his last hours would be softened by the presence of his comrades of the days when the lancers fought for the union. The old man's glazing eyes would see them to the last, coming out of the heart of the fire to salute him gravely, this time not to pass upward with the smoke, but to form his body guard into the other world. was not long before we saw the glori ous old stars and stripes being waved from the very highest point above the palisades. Never was there a more inspiring sight, which was cheered again and again by the boys in blue, who were each personally and deeply interested in our success. I expected we would now view the charge on Mis sion ridge, which we instinctively felt was the next move. From our ele vated position we could see the line of blue stretched northward up the valley for miles, facing the ridge, while on the ridge and along the west foot extended the lines of gray, in trenched, awaiting our movements. Hut we were destined to take an active part in that fierce charge. Our bri gade was formed after eating a hasty breakfast of hardtack and coffee, marched back down the mountain's side and took our former place on the right of Thomas' line. Our line then charged double-quick acrvss the plain under a musketry fire from the con federate infantry, and the artillery that lined the top of the ridge. It sermed like advancing into the jaws of hell. But that was an array of seasoned veterans; no halt or waver. The confederate line at the foot of the ridge could not stand iJ, but clambered back and tried to form and make a stand behind some earthworks halt way up. This was now the moment and the place where the boys took matters into their own hands; each was his own thinking general, and with one impulse followed with a yell, and kept the rebel line on a run to the top and over on the other side, it was a soul-inspiring sight, on reaching the top, to view the whole confederate army in precipitous flight down the other side, followed by a plentiful shower of loyal musket balls. Hooker did well, but his part wa3 confined to the storming of Lookout, it was Thomas' brave old Army of the Cumberland that drove the confeder ate army up, over and beyond the ridge, and which so nlarued Gen. Grant by their spontaneous ch&rg'e up the ridge without orders. 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