Chapter 5 Summary

Several days go by with Matt eating only unseasoned fish. Soon he remembers a tree where there was a swarm of bees near what he and his father named Loon Pond. His father told him there were no bees in America until the colonists brought them here from England, and as a result, they must be domesticated bees. Where there are bees, he figures there must be honey. Matt is awfully tired of eating fish and nothing else, and he craves something sweet. He decides to climb the tree and get a small amount of honey that he assumes the bees won't miss.

Climbing up to the level of the hive, Matt tries to reach in for the honeycomb that he can barely see inside. As he does this, a piece of the hive breaks away, and the bees come out in a...