When I got there I looked for the old Squire to tell him of our trouble, but found that he had already driven to the village to meet Senator Hamlin and the other speakers of the afternoon.

Grandmother and the girls were too busy getting ready for the distinguished guests, who were to have supper with us, to give much heed to my story of the bees.

So I got the smoker, the box of elm-wood punk and a ladder about fourteen feet long, and with this load drove back at top speed to the meetinghouse.
Addison had eaten his share of the luncheon that we had brought, and while I devoured mine he pottered with the smoker; neither of us understood very well how it worked.

There are now several kinds of bee smokers on the market; but the old Squire had contrived this one by making use of an old-fashioned bellows to puff the smoke from out of a two-quart tin can in which the punk wood was fired by means of a live coal.

The nose of the bellows was inserted at one end of the can; and into a hole at the other end the old gentleman had soldered a short tin tube through which he could blow the smoke in any direction he desired.
In order not to burn his fingers he had inclosed both bellows and can in supporting strips of wood; thus he could hold the contrivance in one hand and squeeze the bellows with the other.
As we were unfamiliar with the contrivance, we both had to climb the ladder--one to hold the can and the other to pump the bellows.