Jamie felt something of a fool that he had not at least stretched out his hand and picked up the record the girl had written and read it. He had not been much of a man and he had not managed his own wedding in his own way quite as he had thought that he would. It all harked back to the fact that he had given a promise, that he had said that he would not intrude himself, he would make no effort to find her. He had said that he would be content merely to offer what assistance he could and the amount and kind of assistance that the girl required had been very clearly specified to him. He had accepted the bargain. He had gone through with it. The thing to do now was to go out on the back porch, put on the Bee Master’s old bee coat, raid the lily and the cinnamon pink beds, and while his body was free from the taint of surgical dressing, go down and face the Black Germans and find out for himself whether he was bee immune for sure. It was a piece of knowledge that he wanted to have before the little Scout put in another appearance.
So Jamie donned the coat and applied the lily and wiped his head through the pinks and slowly, deliberately, with as much assurance of step as he could assume, he made the long march down the east line, pausing before hive after hive of bees, looking at the tiny things that were coming and going so busily on humming wings, realizing that he did not know a drone from a worker, a nurse from a queen.
He resolved, as he stood before one of the hives, that when Doctor Grayson called him that evening for his daily
