CHAPTER IV.
"The bee, a more adventurous colonist than man." W.C.

BRYANT.
"Some silent laws our hearts will make, Which they shall long obey; We for the year to come may take Our temper from to-day."-- WORDSWORTH.
"You know what an Apiary is, Isaac, of course ?" I was sitting in the bee-master's cottage, opposite to him, in an arm-chair, which was the counterpart of his own, both of them having circular backs, diamond-shaped seats, and chintz cushions with frills.
It was the summer following that in which Jem and I had tried to see how badly we could behave; this uncivilized phase had abated: Jem used to ride about a great deal with my father, and I had become intimate with Isaac Irvine.
"You know what an Apiary is, Isaac ?" said I.
"A what, sir ?" "An A-P-I-A-R-Y." "To be sure, sir, to be sure," said Isaac.

"An _appyary_" (so he was pleased to pronounce it), "I should be familiar with the name, sir, from my bee-book, but I never calls my own stock anything but the beehives.
_Beehives_ is a good, straightforward sort of a name, sir, and it serves my turn." "Ah, but you see we haven't come to the B's yet," said I, alluding to what I was thinking of.
"Does your father think of keeping 'em, sir ?" said Isaac, alluding to what he was thinking of.
"Oh, he means to have them bound, I believe," was my reply.
The bee-master now betrayed his bewilderment, and we had a hearty laugh when we discovered that he had been talking about bees whilst I had been talking about the weekly numbers of the _Penny Cyclopaedia_, which had not as yet reached the letter B, but in which I had found an article on Master Isaac's craft, under the word Apiary, which had greatly interested me, and ought, I thought, to be interesting to the bee-keeper.

Still thinking of this I said, "Do you ever take your bees away from home, Isaac ?" "They're on the moors now, sir," said Isaac.
"_Are_ they ?" I exclaimed.

"Then you're like the Egyptians, and like the French, and the Piedmontese; only you didn't take them in a barge." "Why, no, sir.