Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/232

 So Jamie had his joke with the ancient naturalists and then he advanced on the moderns and sat down with a book of rules for men who would be the keepers of bees.

Back in the depths of his mind, Jamie decided that when the Bee Master returned he would be so weakened that it might be a year at least before he would be able to go on with his work, and during that time he would stay on the job, if the Master wanted him, and he would learn everything there was to know about bees. The more he thought of it, the more it appealed to him that, since there was not the chance for forestry in California that there was in the East, he would do better and extract fully as much enjoyment out of life working with bees as he would with trees.

It was after ten days of religious following of this schedule that Jamie awoke one morning, and instead of arising immediately, lay still to take stock of himself. He stretched his right leg as far down in the bed as it would go and wiggled his toes. Fine! There was not a hint of soreness He tried the left leg with the same results. Then he tried the right arm and then the left and then he stretched his whole body and threw his weight on the back of his head and his heels and drew up his shoulders and eased them down, and the result of the exercise so delighted him that he tried it over again. He decided that it might not be a bad thing to work out a form of exercise and put himself through it every morning on awakening.

So for himself, and merely of his own volition, he began a practice which a very great doctor of health recommends