he left college to study forestry. He had meant to be a tree man. Always he had loved the woods, the fields, the flowers; but to him a tree had been a living thing, a thing with feelings, a thing with feet in the earth and a head in the sky and widely reaching arms of beneficence that gave either shade or fruit or the pleasure of flowers for the benefit of the world. He had meant to go to the greatest doctor of trees, and under his guidance and instruction, take a thorough course in tree surgery; then he had meant to begin the great work of saving every possible tree now in existence.
He reflected that working as a bee master was not so bad. Always he could do what he might for the trees and at the same time a world of flowers were necessary to furnish a sweet that from the dawn of history had delighted man, had been medicinal, healing. A noticeable factor in the wealth of the world was the work that the humming gauze wings swarming up and down the garden before him were carrying on. If a man were going to live; if he had the chance to remain for any length of time in a place like that; if he could learn the profession without expensive tuition, without lengthy apprenticeship, it might be a quicker way to a livelihood, and it might be as pleasant and more interesting. There was a possibility that the volumes on the shelves above the Bee Master’s writing desk might contain information that would make a living bee, capable of what seemed remarkably near to thought and preconcerted action, quite as interesting as an immovable tree, which certainly could
