the barrels when snow was on the ground, poured out of a pitcher into
a glass, had not the ecstatic tang of cider through a straw. The Bees
came to the very edge of the tub, as if to dispute such hiving of
diluted honey; and more of them came, from hanging with bent bodies,
around the dripping press.

Their buzz increased to a roar. Robert Day woke keenly up to find
the old white and the old gray just creeping across a railroad track,
and a locomotive with its train whizzing at full speed towards them.




CHAPTER VIII.

LITTLE ANT RED AND BIG ANT BLACK.


A breath's delay must have been fatal. Robert had no whip, but
doubling the lines and shouting at the top of his voice, he braced
himself and lashed the gray. The respectable beast leaped with
astonishment, dragging its fellow along. The fore wheels cleared the
track, and Bobaday's head was filled with the prolonged cry of the
locomotive. Zene sprang up, and the hind part of the wagon received a
crash which threw the boy out at the side, and Zene quite across the
gray's back.

The train came to a stop after running a few yards further. But
finding that no lives were lost, it put on steam and disappeared on
its course, and Zene and his trembling assistant were trying to prop