A MULE KICKS A BEEHIVE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 69, 29 April 1881, Page 4

A MULE KICKS A BEEHIVE.

I was visiting a gentleman who lived in the vicinity of Los Angeloa. The morning was beautiful. The plash of little cascades about the grounds, the buzz of bee 3, aud the gentle moving of the foliage of the pepper trees in the scarcely perceptible ocean breeze, made up a picture which I thought was complete. It was not. A mule wandered on the scene. The scene, I thought, could have got along without him. He took a different view. Of course mules were not allowed on the grounds. That is what he knew. That was his reason Tor being there. While I was thus thinking, the mule, j which had wandered up close to a large beehive, got stung. His eyes lighted up. as if that was just what he was looking for. He turned on that beehive and took aim. He fired. In ten seconds che only piece of beehive I could see was about the size a man feels when he has told a joke that falls on the company like a piece of sad news. This piece was in the air. It was being kicked at. The bees swaimed. They swarmed a good deal. They lit on that mule earnestly. After he bad kicked the last piece of beehive so high that he could ~ not reach it any more, he stopped for an instant. He seemed trying to ascertain whether the 10,000 bees which were stinging him meant it. They did. 'lie mule turned loose. I never saw anything to equal it. He was envoloped in a dense fog of earnestness and bees, and filled with enthusiasm and stings. The more he kicked the. higher he arose from the ground! I may have been mistaken, for I was somewhat excited and very much delighted j but that mule seemed ta rise as high as the tops of the pepper trees. The pepper trees were twenty feet high. He would.pße/t and that himself like a frog swimming. Sometimes when he was in mid-air he Would look like he was flying, and I would think for a moment he was about to become an ange). Only for a moment. There are probably no mule angels. A sweet calm and gemlepeacefulness pervaded me. When he had kicked lor an hour, he began to fall short of tho top? of the pepper trees. He was settling down closer to the earth. Numbers were telling on him. He looked distressed. He had always been naed to kicking against something, but found now that he was striking the air. it was very exhausting. He finally got so he dieTnot rise clear of the ground, buc continued to kick with both feet for hajf an-hour, next with first one foot and the. n the other for another half-an-hour ; "then with his right loot only ©Tjry few minutes, the in-

~*—yttkvftKQ.B'iag laager nnd longer, \Xt\il hefiually was still His bead drooppe^, his lip hung lower and , lower. The bees stung on He. l<!»ked as if he thought that a mean, . sneaking advantage had been taken ]of him. I ietire'l from the scene. | ■ Early the next morning I returned. , The sun came slowly up from be- | hind the eastern hill-. The light, foliage «f the pepper trees tremWlad with his morning caress. His go don kiss fell upon the opening roses A hoe could be seen flying hither, another thither. The mule lay near the scene of yesterday's struggle, j Peace had come to him. tie was: •lead. Too much kicking against! nothing - Californian paper.