It was soon not a dim but a dark jug. For the moment the last angry
Bumblebee had disappeared inside it Johnnie Green stole quickly up from
behind a haycock and slipped the cork into the mouth of the jug.

Johnnie's face wore a grin of joy. Perhaps he did not stop to realize
that he was breaking up a happy home.

"I've got 'em!" he shouted aloud. And then he shook the jug vigorously,
listening with delight to the sound of the splashing water within. Soon
he set the jug behind the sheltering haycock and sat down beside it to
make further plans. It was Johnnie's intention then to drown everything
on the farm that carried a sting--wasps, hornets, honey bees. He was not
quite sure about mosquitoes, for he thought they might be hard to capture
in great numbers.

Since he was intending to go swimming, he did not care to waste much more
of the afternoon by staying in the meadow. So he proceeded to empty the
jug.

It certainly _looked_ as if the Bumblebee family had met with ill
fortune. Several dozen workers--and Buster, too--lay limp and
water-soaked upon the ground, when Johnnie Green hurried away to the
spring to get more water for his father and the hired man, before he went
to the mill-pond.

But it was not long before the half-drowned Buster and his companions
began to stir slightly. Gradually the sun dried their wings and warmed
their chilled bodies. And one by one they picked themselves up and
scurried into their house.