Free A Taste for Honey by H. F. Heard Page B

diminish much that last, queer, clinging taint, I decided I must keep my head up and it must and would wear off. Passing through the bedroom, however, I thought that I had better see how the jacket itself had fared. I took it out of the wardrobe, with some apprehension, but there, too, the smell seemed mainly to have evaporated. It did smell, of course, if you put your nose right on it, but you wouldn’t notice it a few inches away. As I’m very forgetful about dull routine details such as laundering, I took the jacket down with me and placed it on a chair beside the table.
    â€œThat will remind me,” I thought, “to tell Alice, when she comes back, to have it cleaned.”
    Then I again marshaled the table, but a moment later I was again on my feet. Alice had put out for me that last running comb, about which she had spoken—as a mute reminder, I supposed, should I have failed to act. Her observations had been correct: nearly all the honey had gone out of it and, as she had neatly changed the plate, I was left with practically nothing but solid wax to eat. I am economical, but wax is not very pleasant or good for you. I had my new supplies, won with considerable discomfort. A few steps into the larder and there they were—neatly unpacked and stacked, each covered with a pyrex baking dish on white plates ranged along the slate shelf. I lifted one of these and brought a fine, sound comb with me to the breakfast table.
    The windows were open, for though the day was not yet hot, it was clear and fine and the fire kept my feet warm. I was munching away in that quiet unthinking state of mind which is perhaps the nicest thing about meals by oneself, when one becomes like a placid animal chewing the cud under a tree in summer, so much at my ease that I was really not thinking of anything in particular. Everything seemed generally all right. So I can’t say when I first became aware that this was no longer quite so.
    Our hearing is said to be our most vigilant, unsleeping sense—last to go when we lose consciousness and first to come back when we regain it, even before we know where we are. I think it was hearing something without attending to it which gave me my first sense of undefined uneasiness. Humming sounds are generally reassuring, but this, for some reason, wasn’t. Then a couple of bees flew in at the window. I thought at first they were wasps (though we have had few this year) after my honey. I held my knife ready to knock out the robbers directly they should alight. They zoomed above the honey but did not alight on it, and then suddenly swooped on the coat hanging on the chair. They settled on the sleeve and lapel, and at that moment the hum broke into full cry, as though a pack had viewed their fox. I saw a dense swarm of bees sweep down outside, wheel before the window, and come pouring into the room. They rushed, without a moment’s check, to join the few scouts already settled on the coat. In a moment it was black with them. I started back, for I could see they were not investigating. They weren’t even crawling about. Each was convulsively clinging to the worsted: they were stinging and restinging the cloth, piercing it through with their deadly little sabers.
    Fortunately, the staircase was near me, and the chair with the coat on it at the other side of the table, or this story would have been written, if at all, by another hand. I scrambled toward my escape. My movement, however, must have given some alarm to the swarm, for quite a large group detached itself from the coat and swung into the air to investigate me.
    I thought I could still manage safely to beat my retreat, when one bee, swinging past me, went within a few inches of my hand. Like a shot he threw himself on it. I knocked him off, trod on him, and threw myself up the stairs, flinging my dressing gown over my head to shield, if possible, my face and neck. This desperate stroke evidently made such a whirlwind