Settlin the Bees

SETTLIN THE BEES by Charles Patton Me and JR Skeens had hitch-hiked it down to the courthouse that mornin, signed up on our stamps, caught the back end of a coal truck back to just above the mouth of Reed Branch and tuck the long way back toward home through the Low Gap Road so JR could cut a bee tree for Huckle Jones. Brother, you talk about a hot time! I never knowed a dirt road could get so hot and dusty. Old Sol musta had the toothache and was a-takin his spite out on the ele-mints. Not a puff of wind was a-blowin and nary sign of a cloud. Even the careless weeds was a-droppin their heads, and you couldn't even hear a bird holler 'cept maybe a pat'erg way off somewhere that had found him a cool spot and was a-braggin about it. We hadn't walked no more than a mile till JR looked like he'd just crawled out of a coal bank. His shirt was matted to his back and he'd licked a clean circle around his mouth where bug dust had settled on him out of that coal truck, and the sweat was a-cuttin little clean ditches down his for'd and jaws like branch water a-cuttin throuth plowed ground, And dusty whoeee! Ever time he stove shoe leather to that Low Gap Road the dust would just hoove out like a stomped mushroom. Then it'd puff up, roll up his brand new breeches legs and then settle right back down into his shoetops and stick to his ankle bones and heel strings. Brother it was that dry! JR had already wished for two hurricanes, three tornadoes, several cloud busts and a tidal wave or two. He never named nothin about a earthquake, though. Right clost to an hour or so of hard rock stavin, both of us had slowed down a right smart. A greyish, dead, barkcolored , lizzard watched me mop the back of my neck from the top of a crosstie post that had at one time been part of a hog pen. His neck, where he ort to have had a pair of gills, hooved in and out like a bee smoker. He never batted an eye. JR had tuck the sun grins and roughlocked his tongue. I could tell by the way he wasn't noticin things that he was a-studyin on somethin. Finally he asked, "How old is Huckle now?" "Oh, 55 or 60, I guess, I don't know. Why?" I asked. "I believe that feller's mind is a-goin bad on him." "I don't see how much could be wrong 19 with it. He's a-drawin more 'n me and you put together." After a long pause,JR said, "You know what that Huckle said when we's down there in that court house toilet? He said, 'JR,' he said, ? know you've been give up to be the knowinest man on Salt Lick when it come to bein handy with bees,' he said, ? want to axt ye somethin,' he said. He said that Haskall Allen told him that I'd tuck 'n drove a swarm of bees all the way from Bosco, through the Midas tunnel, right on down Beaver Creek and plum into the head of Prater Creek and never lost nary head. Then he axt me, he said, I want to know how long did it take ye? he said." "What did ye tell him, JR?" "Nothin. I never let on. I knowed his mind musta been a-comin and a-goin." "How could ye tell that?" "I ain't never been through no tunnel before." "Well, that ain't no reason to think a feller's mind is bad. I ain't never been through the Red Sea either." "I could tell by the way he looked out of his eyes too," JR countered. "How's that?" "Quare natured." "That still ain't no sign a man's a- goin off, JR. I've seed a lot of people look quare out of their eyes. You...