1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



637 



Our Homes 



By A. I. Root 



Come with us. let us lay wait for blood, let u.s 

 lurk privily for the innocent without cause; let u.s 

 swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as 

 those that go down Into the pit; we shall find all 

 precious substance, we shall fill our houses with 

 spoil.— Prov. 1 : 11, 12, 13. 



Almost ever since this department was 

 started I have had more or less to say in 

 regard to market gardening. I have had 

 hundreds of letters from those who have 

 been led to go into rural pursuits from the 

 teachings of Gleanings; and it rejoices my 

 heart to know that I have been able to lend 

 a helping hand, as the years have gone by, 

 to the honest hartl-working people. In vis- 

 iting their homes in my travels I have heard 

 many stories of how they worked early and 

 late to get a start. The successful gardener, 

 esj)ecially near the large cities, is not only 

 obliged to get up early in the morning, 

 oftentimes before daylight, to get his stuff 

 on the market at the proper time, but he is 

 often obliged to work late at night ; and 

 where success has crowned his efforts, it 

 almost invariably happens that the good 

 wife has borne a large part and an impor- 

 tant part of the burden. I fear some of 

 these poor women have been overworked, 

 and have gone down to early graves in their 

 ambition to help the husband make a suc- 

 cess of the work he loved. Let us now get 

 down to the matters of to-day. 



On the morning of Saturday, Aug. 27, a 

 market-gardener near the city of Cleveland 

 took in a load of produce, with his wife and 

 little girl to help dispose of it. In order to 

 clean up their product they stayed until it 

 was well along in the night before they 

 reached their home. When near Kamm's 

 Corners, on the western outskirts of Cleve- 

 land, and not far from their own home, a 

 couple of highwaymen attempted to hold 

 the team just ahead of them. These ban- 

 dits naturally conjectured that these gar- 

 deners going home from the market in 

 Cleveland would have considerable money 

 in their pockets. One of the highwaymen 

 grabbed the horses by the bits, and the 

 other pointed his gun at the driver and 

 demanded his money. This shrewd, hard- 

 working farmer, however, did not propose 

 to give up his honest gains without a strug- 

 gle. He gave his horses a cut, and they 

 pulled away from the hands that held them; 

 but the man with the gun shot at the driver 

 in his attempt to stop him. The ball struck 

 the wagon, but did no further harm. These 

 two drunken boys, however (and they were 

 only boys), decided to try to hold up the 

 next team. This team was the one I have 

 described, with the man and his wife and 

 little girl. When they saw what had hap- 

 pened to the team just ahead of them he 

 turned his horses quickly to drive back in 

 the other direction. The boys, seeing this. 



fired several shots at the team, but did not 

 succeed in stopping it. They did succeed, 

 however, in killing Mrs. Rayner, the driv- 

 er's wife, one of the bullets jnercing her 

 heart. If I remember correctly the little 

 girl was asleep in her lap, and this poor 

 hard-working mother, who had a little fam- 

 ily at home, and on whom so much de]iend- 

 ed for their care and well-being, was thrust 

 out of the world because those two wretches 

 in human form wanted the little money 

 Mr. Rayner and his wife had worked and 

 toiled for early and late. The girl was 

 awakened by a bullet tearing through her 

 foot. She screamed with pain, but the 

 mother heard nothing, as slie herself was 

 dead. 



As a natural consequence a great stir was 

 made. The papers told us that the whole 

 neighborhood by the hundreds, and I do 

 not know but thousands, turned out to 

 hunt up the perpetrators of that dastardly 

 abt. By the way, the highway hold-up 

 business seems to be on the increase, not 

 only in Cleveland but in the suburbs 

 around that great city; and not only after 

 night are men held up, but several times 

 lately in broad daylight in the crowded 

 streets of Cleveland. And even the boys 

 have caught on to the trick of getting 

 money without working for it. They bor- 

 row an old revolver, it does not matter 

 whether it will shoot or not, then point it at 

 some one and demand his money. What 

 they do with the money when they succeed 

 in getting it will come in a littlefurther on 

 in our story. 



Notwithstanding the crowds that came 

 out and scoured the neighborhood, it was 

 over two weeks before one of the murderers 

 was caught. See the following, which I 

 clip from the Cleveland Plain Dealer: 



START AS HIGHWAYMEN. 



YOUNG MEN. ACCUSED OF SHOOTING DOWN FAKM- 

 ER'S WIFE, BUY REVOLVER, DRINK HEAVILY, 

 AND THEN BEGIN CAREER OF CRIME, ASSERTS 

 PRISONER— BURN BARN, STEAL HORSE. AND THEN 

 SLAY AFTER MANY ATTEMPTS AT HIGHWAY ROB- 

 BERY, DECLARES YOUTH NOW IN CUSTODY. 



William Van Gelder, 19-year-old youth, confessed 

 murderer of Mrs. Walter Rayner, Rockport, was 

 arrested early yesterday morning by Sherifl Hirs- 

 tius and Detectives Madison and Rabshaw. 



The capture, after weeks of work on the part of 

 the officials In running down numerous clews, was 

 made at the home of Samuel Duck, Richmond, O., 

 a little town three miles north of Painesville. 



You will see from the above that it must 

 have cost quite a little sura of money to 

 run down that boy. Here is another clip- 

 ping that describes him: 



A'an Gelder. strong and manly, yet worn with the 

 burden of his crime, told his story freely; willingly, 

 relieved at his capture, which he had feared and 

 yet longed for. It is the old story of a desire to 

 emulate the bandit type of idleness, a couple of 

 guns and a few drinks. For two nights the career 

 of attempted robbery and wanton shooting went 

 on. terminating with the killing of Mrs. Rayner. 



Notice what is said in the above about a 

 couple of guns and a few drinks of whisky. 



* * * the excitement over, the courage of the 

 whisky gone, cold, trembling, and tired, he crawled 

 into bed that night, ignorant of his crime. >— . -^ 



