Page:The Swiss Family Robinson, In Words of One Syllable.djvu/67

Rh out of their eyes. When they were free from pain, we took means to deal with the bees. I took a large gourd, which had long been meant to serve for a hive, and put it on a stand. We then made a straw roof to keep it from the sun and wind, and as by this time it grew dark, we left the hive there for the night.

Next day we rose at the first glimpse of dawn, and the boys, whose wounds were now quite well, went with me to help to move the bees to the new home we had made for them. Our first work was to stop with clay all the holes in the tree but one through which the bees were wont to go in to their nest. To this I put the bowl of a pipe, and blew in the smoke of the weed as fast as I could, with a view to drug them with its fumes. At first we heard a loud buzz like the noise of a storm afar off; but the more I blew my pipe the less grew the sound, till at last the bees were quite still, and then I took the pipe out of the hole.

We now cut out a piece of the trunk, three feet square, and this gave us a full view of the nest. Our joy was great to find such a stock of wax, for I could see the comb reach far up the tree. I took some of the comb, in which the bees lay in swarms, and put it by on the plank. The rest I put in a cask, which my wife tied down with sail cloth, lest the bees,