The metheglin story is once in a while,
until this day, related by John S., especially when we all meet for a
family visit. It not unfrequently causes much laughter. I suppose the
laughter is caused as much by the manner in which he tells it (he trying
to imitate or mimic me) as its funniness. It sometimes causes a tear,
perhaps, from excessive laughter and may be, from recollections of the
past and its associations. It may once in a while cause me to give a dry
laugh, but never a sad tear since the night I spilt the metheglin.
One way the bee-hunter took of finding bee trees was to go into the
woods, cut a sappling off, about four feet from the ground, square the
top of the stump and on this put a dish of honey in the comb. Then he
would take his ax, cut and clear away the brush around the place so that
he could see the bees fly and be able to get their course or line them.
This he called a bee stand. In the fall of the year, when there came a
warm, clear and sunny day, after the frost had killed the leaves and
flowers, and the trees were bare, was the best time to find bee trees.
Sometimes when father and I went bee-hunting he took some old honey comb,
put it on a piece of bark or on a log, set it on fire and dropped a few
drops of anise on it from a vial.
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