How had there come to be so many, I wondered, looking down my ten year old body at the swamp below. Hyacinths had not even been here two years ago. Now they floated thickly together on their air filled bulbs, far as I could see in any direction, right into the densely rooted willows and muddy banks. They starved the water of oxygen and sunlight and the smell of rot rose up from them.

My scrawny arms let me swing gently, like the Son of Tarzan character I had seen so recently. I dangled from a rough willow limb, a tree in a tiny island. It was anchored in real roots in solid earth, muck at least. A vine or rope would have let me swing like Boy's father, but a branch would have to do. It dug into my palms and hurt, but not too much.

The tree was no parasite dangling its roots in the pond like a hyacinth, or a jelly fish, trolling for small fish to snare and devour. Trees were strong and proud like the fierce brave men who used them as a highway in the sky and bellowed their mastery of the beasts.

Hyacinths did not sting but they harbored stinging insects, leeches and poisonous snakes like the cottonmouth, black as the mud hiding under the blanket of pretty pastel flowers. We'd found them floating on the flooded pastures after a hurricane and brought them home. Later we learned they'd been brought from South America, but by then it was too late to keep them from becoming a serious pest.

I could feel my fingers slipping. I was afraid to fall into the swamp. Above me an airplant had rooted into the willow's bark. I could see the stranglehold the white tendrils had under a cascade of long dark green leaves which rose in tiers. A pastel flower grew at the end of a slender stalk there, too. Like the orchids my mother grew, this plant drew sustenence from moisture in the air and only anchored to the tree for support. Like me, dangling, swinging my feet as if that might give me a lift, might keep me from falling. Who knew how deep the muck or venemous the creatures.

No, like the air plant I would cling to the tree so that the unseen did not cling to me. But perhaps they were thick enough to walk on, the air sacks would hold my weight, that I wouldn't sink at all. It was a silly idea. I'd punctured many of them with one hand, two fingers. But maybe, if I sank under them, would I be able to part them, to surface?

I should go back and climb down the bole of the tree, but it was too far and I couldn't see where to go. Pretending I was Boy, the fearless lad I just seen in the matinee was not so good an idea. But at least I knew no crocodile or hippo lurked beneath me. Even so, my racing mind insisted, I did not want to fall into the darkness. Yet there was no viny rope from which to swing to another tree.

Only one option remained. I had to climb back up onto the rough limb, to get a better perch. I'd be secure there and a better plan would surely reveal itself. It always did, didn't it?

I swung my legs harder and saw them peek out from tattered denim shorts. For an instant they flashed foreshortened in front of me. On the back swing I jackknifed my stomach muscles and made a desperate lunge for the air plant. I felt it crush and hold in my grasp. My legs folded over the wood beyond. Yes! I had done it!

And then a cloud of yellow sound filled the air and my body began to burn.

I closed my eyes and tried to scream without opening my mouth. But it was useless. The wasps stung me everywhere. Eyelids, ears, face, arms, shoulders, lips, armpits ... legs, they were getting up under my shorts. I let go of the limb and fell into the ooze below.

The bed of hyacinths collapsed around me like a hammock, then I sank beneath the surface. The water was not very deep. It felt cool and safe for a moment, then clinging, grasping, I began to panic. When I stood up my shoulders and head were clear, half-a-dozen of the Amazon lilies hanging from me. I was grateful for the beards of hairy roots, the spongy feel of their thick, slick leaves, the flowery stalks waving around me like antennae.

The mess kept the wasps off of me, for a moment. Then they penetrated the water and slime and renewed their attack. I struggled in the mud. It clung to me as I ran in place, waving my arms, soundlessly screaming. I moved sometimes, falling, splashing toward the shoreline, toward the break in trees which led to the pasture and house. I tripped on rotten logs and slippery things which might have been a turtle or a mudpuppy, or simply slime accumulated between my toes. Gradually I began to move against the weight of water and vegetation.

Like a barge I pushed it all ahead of me until I rose up to the trail which led out of the swamp up to open pasture. Through swelling eyes I could see my father standing out there with a shovel, facing me.

His eyes grew wide.

He threw down the shovel and ran away from me, to the house, my screams chasing after him.

About halfway home I cleared out of the wasps' territory and they let me live. My parents opened the door after I assured them, through distorted lips, that it was safe enough. Mom cleaned me up some and both she and Pop chewed up a few packs of Wings cigarettes, making at least a hundred tiny tobacco poltices. Surely it took away much of the venom and sting. I don't remember that part so much. Probably I was in shock, delerious and whimpering.

My brother and sister came to see me, as if I was a carnival freek. The Tobacco Patch Kid. They snickered simpathetically.

My father sat in a chair and smoked his pipe. If he looked at me, it was probably just to shake his head. He never did say anything about the incident so I never gleaned any wisdom he might have had to share.

But I did learn without being told that running from wasps is a bad idea, counter-intuitive maybe, but bad. Later, whenever I made the mistake of disturbing a nest or leaning on one, I simply froze. Oh, sure, I'd get one or two, maybe even three or four hits. And they would buzz around my face threateningly. But if I did not move they'd calm down after a minute or so and then I could ease away from them and we could all return to some semblance of peace and quiet.

But I took his unspoken point, too. There really isn't much a person can do to help somebody in a cloud of angry hornets, except be ready to help afterward. Two injured people just makes twice the work for the next guy.

Even so, these sixty five years later, I still have that occasional flashback of my father fleeing from me, pariah that I surely was.