Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/27

Rh hanging one behind another, like the leaves of a book. One by one the man lifted them out, swept off the black curtain of bees that clung to them, and showed the clean, new, sweet-smelling honeycomb.

"When an old hive gets too crowded, and the bees begin to swarm," he explained, "we divide them and put some frames and bees into a new, empty hive. See them going to work already, and look at that piece of comb that has just been built; one would think that the fairies had made it."

Oliver had never seen anything so white and thin and delicate as the frail new cells ready for the fresh honey. He forgot any dread of the myriad creatures buzzing about his head, he forgot even his plan, and his impatience of delay. He bent to peer into the hive, to examine the young bees just hatching, the fat, black, and brown drones and the slim, alert queen bee. The girl, now that the responsibility of helping was off her hands, forgot her own nervousness and pressed forward also to look and ask questions. She must be about thirteen or fourteen years old, was Oliver's vague impression of her; she had dark hair and quick, brown eyes, her cheeks were very pink, and one of them was decorated with a black smudge from the smoke blower. He was too intent to notice her much or to remember his fearful dread of girls. And of course this little thing in the shabby apron was very different from the threatened Cousin Eleanor.

He could not see much of the man's face under