We had a lecture at our place the other day, because our people wanted to get even with the people of the next town, who had had a returned missionary with a whole lot of idols the week before. The lecture was all about wasps and beetles and such, and the lecturer had a magic lantern and a microscope, and everything that was adapted to improve and vitrify the infant mind, as our minister said when he introduced him. I believe the lecturer was a wicked, bad man, who came to our place on purpose to get me into trouble. Else why did he urge the boys to study wasps, and tell us how to collect wasps' nests without getting stung? The grown-up people thought it was all right, however, and Mr. Travers said to me, "Listen to what the gentleman says, Jimmy, and improve your mind with wasps."

Well, I thought I would do as I was told, especially as I knew of a tremendous big wasps' nest under the eaves of our barn. I got a ladder and a lantern the very night after the lecture, and prepared to study wasps. The lecturer said that the way to do was to wait till the wasps go to bed, and then to creep up to their nest with a piece of thin paper all covered with wet mucilage, and to clap it right over the door of the nest. Of course the wasps can't get out when they wake up in the morning, and you can take the nest and hang it up in your room; and after two or three days, when you open the nest and let the wasps out, and feed them with powdered sugar, they'll be so tame and grateful that they'll never think of stinging you, and you can study them all day long, and learn lots of useful lessons. Now is it probable that any real good man would put a boy up to any such nonsense as this? It's my belief that the lecturer was hired by somebody to come and entice all our boys to get themselves stung.

As I was saying, I got a ladder and a lantern, and a piece of paper covered with mucilage, and after dark I climbed up to the wasps' nest, and stopped up the door, and then brought the nest down in my hand. I was going to carry it up to my room, but just then mother called me; so I put the nest under the seat of our carriage, and went into the house, where I was put to bed for having taken the lantern out to the barn; and the next morning I forgot all about the nest.

I forgot it because I was invited to go on a picnic with Mr. Travers and my sister Sue and a whole lot of people, and any fellow would have forgot it if he had been in my place. Mr. Travers borrowed father's carriage, and he and Sue were to sit on the back seat, and Mr. Travers's aunt, who is pretty old and cross, was to sit on the front seat with Dr. Jones, the new minister, and I was to sit with the driver. We all started about nine o'clock, and a big basket of provisions was crowded into the carriage between everybody's feet.

We hadn't gone mornamile when Mr. Travers cries out: "My good gracious! Sue, I've run an awful pin into my leg. Why can't you girls be more careful about pins?" Sue replied that she hadn't any pins where they could run into anybody, and was going to say something more, when she screamed as if she was killed, and began to jump up and down and shake herself. Just then Dr. Jones jumped about two feet straight into the air, and said, "Oh my!" and Miss Travers took to screaming, "Fire! murder! help!" and slapping herself in a way that was quite awful. I began to think they were all going crazy, when all of a sudden I remembered the wasps' nest.

Somehow the wasps had got out of the nest, and were exploring all over the carriage. The driver stopped the horses to see what was the matter, and turned pale with fright when he saw Dr. Jones catch the basket of provisions and throw it out of the carriage, and then jump straight into it. Then Mr. Travers and his aunt and Sue all came flying out together, and were all mixed up with Dr. Jones and the provisions on the side of the road. They didn't stop long, however, for the wasps were looking for them; so they got up and rushed for the river, and went into it as if they were going to drown themselves—only it wasn't more than two feet deep.

George—he's the driver—was beginning to ask, "Is thishyer some swimmin' match that's goin' on?" when a wasp hit him on the neck, and another hit me on the cheek. We left that carriage in a hurry, and I never stopped till I got to my room and rolled myself up in the bedclothes. All the wasps followed me, so that Mr. Travers and Sue and the rest of them were left in peace, and might have gone to the picnic, only they felt as if they must come home for arnica, and, besides, the horses had run away, though they were caught afterward, and didn't break anything.

This was all because that lecturer advised me to study wasps. I followed his directions, and it wasn't my fault that the wasps began to study Mr. Travers and his aunt, and Sue and Dr. Jones, and me and George. But father, when he was told about it, said that my "conduct was such," and the only thing that saved me was that my legs were stung all over, and father said he didn't have the heart to do any more to them with a switch.