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The Keeper of the Bees

and you know he loved you like that, and if he was going on his long journey and had something very dear to him to leave, who do you think would be the person to whom he would leave it?”

So long as he lives Jamie will remember the reaction of the little Scout to that question. The flat shoulders squared. The head lifted to an extreme height. The chin drew in. The eyes batted. A hand was laid on the chest at the base of the throat; the mouth opened and the eyes closed, and the little Scout went through the pantomime of swallowing the biggest morsel that could, by any possibility, be forced down a small æsophagus. Then it came straight from the shoulder, as Jamie was beginning to learn that everything came with the little Scout.

“Why, he’d just naturally leave it to me!

Calmly, casually, convincingly, the words came from lips of assurance. “He’d leave it to me, and maybe he’d leave some to you, because you stuck on the job when you wasn’t hardly able, and you faced down the bees like a real man would, and you been square about taking care of things. You can write down my answer to that question: He’d leave some to me, and if he played the game square, like he always did, he’d leave some to you!”

“Well,” said Jamie, “you’re a good guesser, Jean! That’s exactly what the Bee Master has done. He’s left a writing that Doctor Grayson thinks will hold in the courts, and this writing says that the west acre of the garden of wonder up there, and the hives that are on it, are yours; and the east acre and the hives that are on it, are