Page:Weird Tales v15n01 1930-01.djvu/122

the Sanctissimum was the last, the very last thing that Kazmir Strod would have doubted, in the entire scheme of the world's regulations and principles.

It was only occasionally nowadays that Kazmir worked at bricklaying. Ten years before, in the Old Country, he had learned that trade. Always a wilful, strong-headed youth, independent of mind, he had flown in the face of his family custom to learn a trade like that. All his family, near Kovno, had been market-gardeners. That strong-headedness had been responsible for his emigration, too. There had been many disputes between him and his father and older brothers. The strong-headedness and the trade! There were great openings for a good bricklayer in America.

But, since he had married—rather late in life, to this Americanized Anna of his, at twenty-two; he was twenty-seven now—with enough money to buy this place, earned at the bricklaying, he had reverted to his gardening. There wasn't as much in gardening, even with good land like this, and sometimes Anna would nag him to take a job when a contractor offered one, but there were all the deep-rooted satisfactions of the soil; the love of it was bred deep in his blood and bones, and he had a way with tomatoes and early peas and even humdrum potatoes.

This devotion to the soil, he felt, triumphantly, had been amply justified that August. He had an offer to go and be gardener on a great estate, a millionaire's, eighteen miles away. The offer included a house, and the use of what vegetables he needed for his family. He accepted it, and told Anna afterward.

Anna was delighted. He had not been sure of how she would take it, and her delight pleased him enormously. For several days it was like a new honeymoon. He spread it all over the community that he wanted to sell his place.

He got six hundred dollars, cash, more than he had paid for it. There was a couple of thousand dollars worth of improvement which he had dug into its earth, but six hundred dollars was six hundred dollars! The title passed, after a day and a night's wrangling with the purchaser, Tony Dvorcznik, a compatriot. Kazmir and Anna and the children moved their possessions in a borrowed motor-truck.

It was in October that Tony Dvorcznik killed off the bees. Tony did not understand bees, and his wife was afraid of them. He hired Stanislas Bodinski, who was one of Father Gregoreff's acolytes, to do the job for him, for a quarter-share of what honey might be discovered within the four hives. Stanislas Bodinski arrived, with sulfur and netting. Tony and his wife stood at a little distance, watching interestedly; telling each other to watch out for stings; marveling at Stanislas Bodinski's nonchalance, deftly placing his sulfur-candles, rapidly stuffing the horizontal opening above the landing-boards, the edges all around the hive tops.

Stanislas joined them, removing his head-net, and stood with them while the sulfur fumes did their deadly work inside the hives. Later, they all walked over to the hives, Stanislas reassuring Tony's wife. "They ain't no danger now. They're all dead by now. Anyhow, they die after they sting you, but you needn't worry none. Jus' the same, you better keep away a little. They's some bees was out the hives when I stopped up them cracks. They'll be flyin' around, kinda puzzled, now."

The comb was lifted out, to exclamations on the part of Tony's wife, into a row of borrowed milk pans. It piled up, enormously, honey covering the bottoms of the pans viscidly.

"You'd wonder where it all come from," said Tony's wife, again and again, "outa them little hives! You