Forty-One

            We used to get a lot of vegetables from gardens to have cookouts. Mostly sweet corn and potatoes, cucumbers, and tomatoes. We never did take much from one place. There was around eight to ten different places we used to go visit. Chickens was another thing that wasn't too safe around us. Sometimes we got a few eggs from the chicken houses. Milk, that was easy to get. Frank used to take some kind of vegetable along and we stopped in somebody's pasture at night. The milking cows were tame anyways. We could walk right up to them. Frank used to let them eat while I milked a couple of quarts or a gallon then we hung it in an old well or brook to get it cold. We had to get that quite often as we couldn't keep it too long.

            One Saturday night real late we decided to get some honey. We knowed where there was fifteen or twenty beehives in a field quite a ways from the people's house. Frank parked the car off the road about two miles from them and we walked the rest of the way. We picked on big hive with four sections on it. We plugged the opening with a rag. Frank took one side and I the other side and headed for the road. Frank had his loose rubber boots on. They come about two inched below the knee. They were always making noise so we had to take it slow and easy.

            Everything was going along fine but it was a cloudy night and real dark. We got over the stonewall and gone down the road when Frank made a little noise with his boots and the people's dog started barking and we hard him coming our way.

            Frank, as always, got scared and dropped his side of the beehive. The four sections slide all apart. Frank was going to try and put them back enough so we could keep going but all at once he just took off down the road.

            I couldn't see him but I could hear him going with his boots. By then I started brushing bees off my hands and arms. I just headed for the stonewall and lay down behind it. I had stripped my shirt off which took most of the bees off me as the hive had fallen toward Frank and dumped hundreds of bees on him and into the tops of his boots. I heard him stop then run then stop each time he had gotten rid of a boot. He stripped his shirt and pants off somehow while he's running. I could hear him hollering and swearing till he was out of hearing distance. There must of been a hundred thousand bees in the big hive.

            I lay quiet behind the stonewall and heard the dog out at the hive only for a short time then heard him let out some yips and take off. I guess he got covered with bees and got stung. I stayed where I was for about ten minutes, till things seemed quiet then followed Frank's trail down the road. I stumbled over his first boot, never did see the second one or his shirt. His pants was the last to come off. I didn't touch them. I knew they'd be covered with bees. When I got to the car Frank wasn't in sight. He heard me coming and thought it might be the farmer so he took off again into the woods. I called two or three times till he heard me and came back to the car.

            At that point I couldn't help but to start laughing. I just sat down and laughed till the tears was running down my face. Frank was a mess. His legs was banged up and scratched. His feet was bruised and cut, and no clothes. He sure wasn't laughing. All he said was, "Damn you and your bees". I came out of it not too badly off, only five or six stings but we had enough for one night so we headed back.

            Every time I thought of that night I was laughing at him for a month after that that. One thing, we didn't try for any honey again.