The Keeper of the Bees/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV

Reap the Whirlwind

THE days began to slip by rapidly. As Jamie be came more familiar with the work he was supposed to do he found that constantly he could see things of his own volition that no one had told him about, yet they were things that increased the activity of the bees, things that added to the beauty of the garden, things that resulted in producing a larger amount of different kinds of vegetables. He found, too, that a number of fruit and vegetable stands not far from his location were willing to pay him worth-while prices for anything he had in those lines that he and Margaret Cameron could not use. Then he began filling baskets for the little Scout to carry home that there might be no question of unequal division.

There had been ten days when he had scarcely seen the little Scout, and then there came a joyous day when the child came whooping into the garden followed by Ole Fat Bill and the Nice Child and Angel Face. They had made merry, and Jamie’s ears rang and his sides ached with laughter. They were celebrating the close of school. They were planning for a long summer that was to comprise more mischief than probably ever before had been crowded into the same length of time.

And to his amazement the nurse broke into tears and used the towel on her eyes.

“But, look here!” said the doctor. “You spoke up for Mr. MacFarlane. You said he was not responsible for this.”

“And I’ll say it again,” said the nurse. “Can’t you see by what she told me, by the way he came in , by the way he left, that he’d never seen the girl before, that he didn’t know who she was? Because some arrangement had been made by which that child was to bear his name, he assumed responsibility for it, but, good Lord ! you can’t convince me in ten years that he had ever seen that girl there on the bed before, or that the marriage certificate I packed among her belonging so the child could have it was a legal document. Don’t you think it!”

Then the nurse went her way and the doctor went his way, and the Keeper of the Bees climbed in the taxi and gave instructions to be driven back to the blue garden.

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