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lines of bees established,-two to farm-houses and one to the woods, and our box is being rapidly depleted of its honey. About every fourth bee goes to the woods. The woods are rough and dense and the hills steep, and we do not like to follow the line of bees until we have tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance they go into the woods,--whether the tree is on this side of the ridge, or in the depth of the forest on the other side. So we shut up the box when it is full of bees, and carry it about three hundred yards along the wall.

14. Other bees have followed our scent, and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods is established. This is called cross-lining the bees. The new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that the tree is only a few rods into the woods. The two lines we have established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in the woods, we are sure to find the tree. We quickly follow up these lines, and where they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan every tree closely.

15. But not a bee is seen or heard; we do not seem as near the tree as we were in the fields; yet if some divinity would only whisper the fact to us we are within a few rods of the coveted prize, which is not in one of the large hemlocks or oaks that absorb our attention, but in an old stump not six feet high, and which we have seen and passed several times without giving it a thought.

16. After much searching, and after the mystery seems rather to deepen than to clear up, we chance to pause beside this old stump. A bee comes out of a small opening like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs its eyes and examines its antenna, as bees always do before leaving

their hive, then takes flight. At the same instant several bees come by us loaded with our honey, and settle home with that peculiar, low, complacent buzz of the well-filled insect. Here, then, is our prize, in a decayed stump of a hemlock-tree. We could tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find it an easy prize, and a rich one too, for we take from it fifty pounds of excellent honey.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

John Burroughs was born at Roxbury, N. Y., April 3, 1837. His writings show a lively poetic fancy, an intimate acquaintance with nature, and all the charms of a polished literary style.

Virgil (5), Pub'lius Virgil'ius, born about the year 70 B.C., was a Roman poet, famous as the author of the Æneid.

In paragraph 12 the gossips are supposed to be talking about a particular bee, here mentioned as Peggy Mel, a fanciful name which the author has coined from the Latin word mel, signifying honey.

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1. Strolling in the cool of evening, drinking in the balmy

air,

I met a strange wayfaring man bowed down with grief

and care.

Eighty years had left their footprints on his gaunt and ashen cheek,

And his hands were gray and shrunken, and his voice was thin and weak:

But his eyes, while he was speaking, kindled with a misty glow

'Mid their whitened brows and lashes, like a crater in
the snow.

And this aged Frenchman told me (his name was
Jacques Dufour)

The story of the faded shred of ribbon that he wore:

2. Just a scrap of scarlet ribbon pinned upon his shrunken breast,

But to him more rich and beautiful than rubies of the

East.

'Twas in eighteen-twelve he won it, in that terrible

campaign

When the French invaded Russia, but invaded her in

vain;

3. And the starved and freezing Frenchmen had begun that sad retreat

Through the snow that proved for most of them both grave and winding-sheet.

There had been a bloody skirmish 'twixt the rearguard and the foe,

And among the sorely wounded, whom the chance of fight laid low,

Was a gallant Polish Colonel, Marshal Davoust's favor

ite aide,

And the Marshal, kneeling o'er him, turned about, and sharply said:

"Halt, Company of Grenadiers, and see this wounded Pole!

He loves the French; he hates the Russ with all his fiery soul:

4. Will you let him fall a prisoner to his bloody-minded

foe?"

And the Company of Grenadiers cried out as one man,

No!

"Then lift him," said the Marshal. "You soldiers must have learned

That our wagons we've abandoned, and our baggage has been burned:

5. Make a litter-you must bear him; I trust him to your love;

He will burden, will impede you, but I know that you

will prove

That you do your duty ever, and will guard this wounded man

As you guard your sacred colors when they lead the battle's van.”

So they made the hasty litter, and the wounded man they bore

(Of the youngest and the cheeriest was Sergeant Jacques Dufour).

And day by day they fought their way, through deserts bleak and wild,

Guarding the crippled Colonel, as a woman guards her child.

8. But the work of love delayed them, and they slowly fell behind,

Yet not one of all that Company of Grenadiers repined.
Still they fought the cold and Cossacks; still they held

their rugged way,

Falling back, but never fleeing: retreating, yet at bay.

7. But the foe was fell and agile, and the cold it waxed

amain,

And so one by one they perished-some were frozen,

some were slain,

Till the nineteenth day of marching came, and there were only five

Of that Company of Grenadiers who still remained alive.

Then spoke the wounded Colonel: "O my comrades, it is vain:

I can surely never live to see my native land again; You are squandering your lives for naught, lives it were sweet to save

For France and future glory; so leave me, comrades

brave."

8. "Peste!" said Jacques Dufour, "my Colonel, we take leave to answer Nay.

We have orders to deliver you at Wilna--we obey!"
So they lift again the litter, and they struggle on their

way

Till the western clouds are lighted with the gleams of

dying day:

9. And as they watch the glory, against those golden

skies

The towers and walls of Wilna in welcome outline rise!
But too great the stress of feeling for those over-

burdened men :

Too swift the refluent flood of hope that swelled their
hearts again :

Far too weak their feeble bodies for this beatific sight:
Two fell dying on the left hand, two fell dying on the

right;

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