your soul, you can soon get it over with, includin’ war tax. But, oh, boy! lemme tell you this! Before you go near the hives of the Black Germans, get your scent right!”
“But how do I get my scent right?” asked Jamie.
“Well, for one thing, I’ll show you the right coat. Put that on and then go and stick your head in the cinnamon pinks and rub it all around like I did, and then take a Madonna lily and smash it and rub it all over your hands, and maybe you better go down by the water tap where there is a little spongy place and pull a handful of mint and rub that all over your britches. Whatever you do, don’t weaken! You better whistle the right tune. Can you whistle, slow and easy, ‘Highland Mary’? That’s the one the bees like best. Her name was Mary. And if you can whistle it real soft and easy, and lots of love, and lots of coaxin’, and lots of lonesomeness, if you can work it up just right—you are about his height—the bees might not know the difference. Yes, I guess they would, too. You prodibly never heard of such eyes as bees have got. A worker after you has got six thousand eyes on each side of its head, and a male—’cause on account of the Queen again, when she flies clear nearly to Heaven, way above the birds and everything—a male has got thirteen thousand eyes on each side of its head. So you better believe, if one got roused up about you, he’d see that your head wasn’t white, All the bees would miss the Bee Master’s white head. It was always bare. And they’d miss his beard and his big, dark eyes. Ain’t he wonderful?”
“Yes, I have an idea, from the few minutes I saw him
