Many, many years ago the people in Germany lived in little towns with high walls around them. They built walls around their towns because they had quarrels with other towns. The walls protected them against their enemies.

Sometimes people kept bee-hives on the high walls. The bees could fly away into the fields outside and gather honey. There were not many flowers inside the city to get honey from.

One morning two baker¹ boys were hungry. They had to get up very early. Some fine rolls had just been taken from the oven. The boys thought it would be fine to have some rolls and honey.

“Let’s go up on the walls and get some honey out of one of the hives,” said John.

[67]“But the bees will sting² us,” answered James. “Besides the watchman on the walls might see us. Then we would be in trouble of another kind.”

John, however, persuaded James to go. The two boys stole out of the shop, and ran across the street.

In a few minutes they were creeping up the stairs that led to the top of the wall.

There was no watchman to be seen. He had gotten sleepy probably, and had gone somewhere to rest. But there was a noise coming from somewhere.

The boys listened, but all was quiet again. They made their way quietly along the wall till they came to the hives.

Then they covered their faces and got ready to rob the bees of their treasure. John was just lifting the top from one of the hives, when he heard another strange noise. He dropped the hive hurriedly.

The noise seemed to come from the outside of the wall. The boys looked over,[68] and saw a small army. It was the people of Linz, who had come to attack the town.

Both boys were terribly frightened at first. They saw, however, that something must be done to save the town.

“James,” said John, “you run yonder and ring the bell. I will tumble³ the bee-hives down on their heads.”

James did as he was told. John pushed a hive over the wall. It fell on the leader’s head and went to pieces. The bees were angry at being disturbed in this way. They flew at the men and stung⁴ their hands and faces, so that they were glad to run away.

Another bee-hive came

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