as all young Americans do that it was rather hard to get such a tanning
in Michigan, and I had begun to think myself quite a somebody.

From that day, or night, I made up my mind that honesty was the best
policy, at all events, for me. When I went to bed, at night, after that I
gave the metheglin barrel a wide berth and a good letting alone, for I
had lost my relish for metheglin. 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. If we were near a bee tree in a short
time a lone bee would come. When it came it would fly around a few times
and then light on the honey comb in the dish which it had scented. No
doubt, it had been out industriously hunting and now it had found just
what was desired. Very independently it would commence helping itself and