But after we had kindled a fire in the stove and the long funnel had begun to heat the upper part of the room, they began to fly in still greater numbers.

Soon one of them darted down at us, and Addison pulled off his hat to drive it away.
"I say!" he cried, as his eyes followed the insect where it alighted on the ceiling.

"That's no hornet! That's a honeybee--and an Egyptian, too!" We quickly made sure that they were indeed Egyptian bees.

They were coming down through the cracks between the laths at the place where the plaster had fallen from the ceiling.
"Do you suppose there's a swarm of bees up there in the loft ?" Addison exclaimed.

"I'll bet there is," he added, "a runaway swarm that's gone in at the gable end outside, where the clapboards are off." He climbed up on the high pulpit and with the handle of the broom rapped on the ceiling.