Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/243

 ception of the journey to the Far Country, and I am very sure it is the right conception.”

Jamie kissed the Bee Master on the forehead, and then he lifted to his lips the slender hands of the sick man and, turning, went quietly from the room. As he went, he passed a beautiful blue bowl filled to overflowing with more of the yellow roses that he had seen growing only in the garden of Margaret Cameron.

All the way home Jamie rode in deep thought. Would the Bee Master ever be able to come back to the house with the gracious face turned to the roadway, with the luring garden looking to the sea? Would he ever again sit in his great chair by his fireside and read from his loved books? Jamie realized that he was not waiting to reach home and the side of the Bee Master’s bed to offer up his petition. He was asking God as he rode through the turmoil of the streets of the city, crowded on either hand by people absorbed in the affairs of life, to grant even a short respite to the man he was rapidly learning to idolize.

When he left the car, he walked slowly up the roadway to the house of the Bee Master. He entered it and stood irresolute for a minute and then he walked to the telephone and from a list he had made, selected the number that the little Scout had given him. When he called it, the rich, sweet voice of a woman answered.

Then said Jamie, “This is James MacFarlane of the Sierra Madre Apiary. Is the Scout Master at home?”

“Not at this minute,” came the reply.