Beehive and Old Tree

It was a nice and hot summer day many summers ago. Carmella was young (approx. 5 yrs old) and Aaron (approx. 3 yrs old) was twenty-one months younger. We would get into trouble if we could but mostly it was all done to have fun. So we had this piece of fence that was big enough for both of us to walk in like we were hamsters in a hamster wheel. We were walking all around in that child hamster wheel this day. We adventured down to where an old Oak tree was and where Uncle Benie's (Papa's brother) had put his honey bee boxes while he had gone out of town for a bit.

Now, I bet Papa and Tudy had told us both to stay away from those Honey Bees but it was that warning that made us adventure down to the tree to see them. We wheeled up to those boxes and lifted one of those lids off of a box. I, Carmella, remember seeing inside and all the honey with the bees covering it. But, the lid had not been lifted for very long when the bees started to bit us both. We started running back. We started in our child hamster wheel but could not go fast enough. The bees were stinging us. So we headed to the house and left the wheel there. I was pulling Aaron's three year old arm behind me and running as fast as I could. He was slow! I would drop his arm and yell for him to run faster and I would run ahead. Then, I would turn around and see he was behind me and go grab his hand and drag him behind me a few more steps and leaps.

We finally made it back to the house. I remember seeing Tudy as we ran back. She had been hanging the laundry out to dry on the line in the back of the house. She met us at the gate asking what was going on and seeing that some of the bees were still stinging us and seeing all of the stings we had on us. She went and got the gasoline but before that scolded us for going down to where we were told not to go and for taking the lid off. Later we learned it took a few days for the bees to calm down and Tudy went down to the Oak tree and put the lid back on. That child hamster wheel stayed down there for months.