" Grandfather's victims had not been long discovering their fresh affliction, for the bees' docility was spent. Where the cluster fell, none knew for certain, but on impact it had resolved into separate angry bees. There was a howling and a flurrying of limbs. Konrad and Willy Erdmann scrambled apart to flail like epileptics in the grass. Grandfather rushed in batting his hands and shouting 'Nien, lieber Gott, sting Willy just!' Only Mother made no defense; having swooned from one fright and wakened to another, she now lay weeping where she'd been dumped: up-ended, dazed and sore exposed.
But whom neither pain nor the fear of it can move, shame still may. The bees were already dispersing when Methodists reached our fence; at sight of them the principals fell to accusation.
'Stole my swarm and sicked 'em on me!' Erdmann hollered from the grass.
'Bah, it was my bees anyhow,' Grandfather insisted. He pointed to Andrea. "You see what he done. And busted the hammock yet!' "
