my bee equipment. When he gets here, bring it to me. Keep Irwin away.” She grimaced. “He makes the bees nervous.”
“They make me nervous.” Roland looked from her to J.J. and back at her again. “Are you going to smoke them? I’ve heard that calms them.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt.” She glanced back at the swarm. “They’ve left someone’s bee box somewhere, or a hollow tree,” she said to J.J. “Or maybe an abandoned building.”
“Why did they do that?” the boy asked.
“Probably because their queen was old or the hive got too crowded. They’re being so friendly because they don’t have honey to protect.” She shrugged. “They’re just looking for a new home.”
“Oh.”
“Were they in the tree when you climbed up there?” she asked.
J.J. nodded. “I wanted to see what they were doing.”
“He’s been singing to them,” Roland said, swallowing to try to dissolve his fear. “He just didn’t understand how dangerous it was.”
“The bees didn’t sting me,” J.J. said. “They like me.”
“Do they like it when you sing?” Johanna asked. And when J.J. nodded, she added, “Then you can sing to them, if you want to. I sing to mine all the time.”
J.J. giggled. “You do?”
“The ladder,” she reminded Roland as she continued to watch J.J. in the tree.
Roland backed away slowly. He was still sweating and his hands and feet felt wooden, but some of the awful despair that had paralyzed him earlier had ebbed away. Johanna didn’t seem alarmed. Obviously, she had a plan.
He turned and ran. “Don’t leave him.”
“Don’t worry,” she called after him. “We’re fine, aren’t we, J.J.?”
“Ya, Dat,” he heard his son say. “We’re fine.”
Pray to God you are. Roland lengthened his stride, running with every ounce of strength in his body.
Chapter Two
“Honeybees are wonderful creatures,” Johanna told J.J. He nodded, still seemingly unafraid of the dozens of insects crawling in his hair and over his body. J.J. was calm and happy, which was good. Far too many people feared bees, and she had always believed that they sensed when you were afraid. “Do you like honey on your biscuits?” she asked, trying to distract him while they waited for Roland to return with the ladder.
“My grossmama makes biscuits sometimes. And my aunt Mary. Dat doesn’t know how.” A mischievous grin spread across J.J.’s freckled face, and he blew a bee off his nose. “Dat’s biscuits are yucky. He always burns them.”
“Biscuits can be tricky if you don’t watch them carefully,” Johanna agreed. She glanced from the boy to where Blackie grazed. When Roland got back, she’d ask him to catch the horse and walk him until he cooled down. A horse that drank too much cold water when he was hot sometimes foundered.
Absentmindedly, Johanna rubbed her shoulder. It had been years since she’d ridden a horse, and tomorrow she’d feel every day of her twenty-seven years. Not that she’d admit it to Roland or anyone else, but jumping a three-rail fence bareback hadn’t been her idea. It had been Blackie’s. And by the time she realized that there was no opening in the fence and no gate, it was too late to keep the gelding from going over.
In spite of his high-spirited willfulness, Johanna was fond of Blackie. He had a sweet disposition and he never tried to bite or kick. Despite Mam’s salary from teaching school, money from the farm, and the income from Johanna’s bees, turkeys and quilts, money was always tight. If anything happened to the young driving horse, the family would find it difficult to replace him.
“Here comes Dat,” J.J. announced.
“Remember to think good thoughts,” Johanna said aloud. In her head, she repeated the thought over and over.
“J.J., did you know that a community of bees thinks all together, like they have one brain?” she asked him, in an attempt to keep her composure, as well as help him keep his. “This swarm has drones and workers and, in the middle, a queen. The others all protect her, because without the queen, there can be no colony.”
“Why did they land in this tree in a big ball?”
“They’re looking for a new home. For some reason, and we don’t know why, they couldn’t live in their old house anymore. They won’t stay here in the tree. They need to find a safe place where they can store their honey, protect the queen and safely raise baby bees.”
“Uncle Charley said that when a honeybee stings you, it dies.”
Johanna nodded. “Uncle Charley’s right. But a bee won’t sting unless it’s afraid, afraid you’ll hurt it or that you’ll harm the hive. That’s why we stay calm and think happy thoughts when we’re near the bees.”
“They like me to sing to them.”
She smiled at J.J., wondering how so much wisdom lived in that small head. “Who taught you about bees?”
The little boy’s forehead wrinkled in concentration, and Johanna’s heart skipped a beat. She’d seen that exact expression a hundred times on Roland’s face. You think you can put the past behind you, but you can’t. All this time, she’d been telling herself that she didn’t care anymore. And she’d been wrong. Her throat clenched. She’d loved Roland Byler for more than half her life, and in spite of everything he’d done to destroy that love, she was afraid that some part of her still cared.
“Nobody told me,” J.J. said solemnly. “Bees are my friends.”
Johanna nodded. “You know what I think, J.J.? I think God gave you a special gift. I think you’re a bee charmer.”
“I am?” He flashed another grin. “A bee charmer. That’s me.”
Roland halted behind Johanna with the ladder over his shoulder. “Where do you want this? I brought some old rags and matches, in case you want to try to smoke the swarm.”
“No sign of Irwin?” Johanna looked back toward the house. “He should have been here by now.”
“I saw your buggy coming up the road. He’ll be here in a few minutes.” Roland glanced up at his son. “Are you all right? No stings?”
“Ne, Dat.” J.J. grinned. “I told you. Bees never sting me.”
Roland frowned. “I don’t know what possessed you to climb up in that tree when you saw them. You should have better sense.”
“Atch, Roland,” Johanna said, as she put a proper mental distance between them. “He’s a child. He’s naturally curious. You don’t see bees swarm every day.”
“It would suit me if I never saw another one. I don’t like bees. I never have.”
“Then
