Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/317

 “What difference does it make?” asked Jamie. “There are as many hives on the west side as there are on the east. If there aren’t, we'll count them and make them exactly even. I’m perfectly willing to move the Black Germans over and give you them as a bonus. Was it the Black Germans you wanted?”

“No,” said the little person, “it wasn’t the Black Germans I wanted. It was the Madonna lilies, I can beat the bees to em every crack. I just love to suck the honey out of ’em! It’s the real thing, straight from the fountain, and I like the real thing! And that panel of fence where we make the Redskins bite the dust, I’d like to have had that mighty well.”

“But won’t a west panel do as well?”

“Oh, I reckon it’ll do as well. The only difference is that I ain’t used to the west panel and I am used to the east and so is Ole Fat Bill and the Nice Child and Angel Face. All of us are used to the east, but I reckon we could use the west just as well.”

Then the little person looked at Jamie speculatively.

“I’m kind of disappointed in you.”

Jamie sat straight.

“I don’t know what I’ve done,” he said.

“That’s just edsactly it,” said the little fellow. “’Tain’t anything you done. It’s something you didn’t do. When you said it didn’t make any difference to you, and I showed you good and plain that it made the difference of the Madonna lilies and our Indian ambush to me, you might have offered to trade sides with me! Prodibly I wouldn’t