1895 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



567 



So much for looking out for the bodily com- 

 fort and safety of my sick relative. At the 

 time of my visit she had regained conscious- 

 ness, and the doctor said the symptoms had 

 changed unexpectedly for the better. She 

 knew me, and expressed much pleasure in see- 

 ing her " boy " once more, for I used to be " her 

 boy " in my schooldays. She expressed some 

 surprise to see so many relatives coming, and, 

 stranger still, because she was not, as she said, 

 very sick. As it was evidently a task for her 

 to hold on to any thread of thought for any 

 length of time, I talked with her briefly at in- 

 tervals. I very soon found out that death had 

 no terrors for her, for her hope was in Him who 

 has passed through death, that he might lead 

 us and take us safely through the dark valley 

 to the immortal shore beyond. I sang to her a 

 verse of that old hymn — 



How sweet the name of Jesus sounds 



In a believer's ear! 

 It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, 



And drives away his fear. 



Then I talked to her about the helplessness of 

 doctors and friends, but of the mighty power of 

 the great Father who has promised to be with 

 us in times like that. Fearing that she was 

 becoming wearied I made some haste to bid her 

 good -by. promising to pray for her. Before I 

 had mounted ray wheel again, another sister 

 came to tell me what my aunt had said after I 

 had eone out. It was something like this: 



" Wei'e you here when we had that sweet lit- 

 tle meeting?" 



When the listener assented, she replied: 



" Oh, it did me so much good !" 



I felt almost sorry I had not talked with her 

 longer; but the doctor said, and I too felt sure, 

 that her recovery depended greatly upon quiet 

 and rest. He said he feared a return of her 

 delirium; and anv little excitement, especially 

 any undue exertion of the brain, might prove 

 fatal. Now, the particular point in this talk 

 to-day, dear friends, is this: The season of the 

 year is upon us when we may expect fevers. 

 The condition of the rainfall where most of you 

 live is such that your wells may be low. For 

 the sake of your dear ones, for humanity's sake, 

 and I think I may say for Christ's sake, do be 

 careful, and look to it in regard to your drink- 

 ing-water. If I am correct, people many times 

 suffer greatly from the effects of bad drinking- 

 water, even if they do not come down with a 

 fever. The tired and overworked mother, the 

 weary hands from the harvest-field, and, in 

 fact, any and all of the inmates of our homes, 

 may have headaches, a feverish feeling, ex- 

 haustion, and nervousness, to contend with 

 that they need not have at all were these 

 matters duly attended to. For a long time I 

 have disliked the taste of the water from our 

 cistern, even though we have a slate roof, and 

 the best cistern we know how to make, with a 

 filter for the water to run through. A few 

 weeks ago we pulled out the chain pump and 

 wooden tubing. This old wooden tubing was 

 water-soaked and partly rotten: and just as 

 soon as it was out of the way, that objection- 

 able taste disappeared. We now have a water- 

 drawer that takes air clear to the bottom of the 

 cistern every time the pump is worked. If you 

 have any reason to fear the water is not just 

 riffht. and that you can not get water from any 

 other source conveniently, boil the water before 

 any of you drink a drop of it. I have not space 

 here at this time to speak about the water fur- 

 nished to the cows that give the milk; but I 

 will just add that, in a neighboring county, a 

 number of cases of diphtheria were traced al- 

 most unmistakably to the visits of the milk- 

 man: and our health oflficers are now demand- 

 ing that he who sells milk shall furnish just as 



good water for his cows to drink as he would 

 furnish for his own family. 



I felt as if it would be best for me to make my 

 stay a brief one, and so I took my wheel again. 

 May be the work I had done made me feel hap- 

 py; and perhaps being free from care, and rid- 

 ing through a beautiful part of the country, 

 also made me feel happy. And, by the way, it 

 seems to me I never before saw so many pretty 

 gardens as I passed that afternoon through 

 Summit and Portage Counties. The gravelly 

 hills especially seemed to be recognized and 

 appropriated. Fruit and berries were plentiful 

 everywhere. Why, in one place I saw potato- 

 tops higher than the picket fence, and in the 

 month of June too, and after that terrible frost 

 just back in the month of May. Now. lest you 

 accuse me of telling great yarns right here in 

 one of my spiritual talks I will explain that the 

 gravelly hillside where those potatoes grew 

 had been cut into along the road, so the picket 

 fence was on lower ground than where the 

 potatoes grew. Yes, and people were digging 

 new potatoes almost if not quite the size of 

 hens' eggs. When I asked if it were possible 

 that they grew after the frost, I was told they 

 hoed the dirt over the tops and covered them 

 up till the blizzard passed by. This was some 

 trouble, but it gave them new potatoes of their 

 own growing when they were retailing at 40 

 cts. a peck at the corner grocery. Why. it paid, 

 and paid big, for all the time and trouble. But 

 I must remember my gardening talks come in 

 another department. For some reason, as I 

 was telling you, a wonderful thrill of peace and 

 happiness and joy came into my heart during 

 my ride about sundown from Randolph to 

 Springfield. The road was sandy, and made 

 the wheeling difficult: yet by going along the 

 foot-paths that had been trodden by the bare- 

 footed children I made very good speed. In 

 one of these foot-paths that ran up over the 

 bank quite a little higher than the road, ray 

 pedal struck the hard ground at the side of the 

 path, and I went over down the bank alraost as 

 suddenly and unexpectedly as if somebody had 

 hit me with a club. I was a little bruised, it is 

 true, and my clothes were somewhat soiled; 

 but alraost before the bruised spots had got 

 done hurting I burst out into expressions of 

 thanksgiving and praise that I had been hurt 

 no worse, and that it was ray privilege to live 

 in such a beautiful world, and to visit so many 

 pleasant and happy homes. Yes. and may be I 

 could help a little to make them pleasanter and 

 happier still — who knows? 



As my home was nearly 30 miles away, and 

 it was between sunset and dark, I decided to 

 pass the Sabbath awav from home. 



Next morning at the usua time I was sitting 

 in the same old Methodist church where I used 

 to attend Sunday-school just 45 years before. 

 The superintendent was absent, and the min- 

 ister was away, so they called on me to give 

 them a little talk at the close of the exercises. 

 I told the children who I was. and pointed out 

 to them the seat where I used to sit when I 

 was only ten years old. Then I told them of 

 one particular Sabbath when I repeated forty 

 verses from the Testament, and how one of my 

 classmates cried because the teacher told him 

 there was not time for him to say his eighty 

 verses. You see. they had just started a new 

 plan. For every ten verses we got a blue ticket; 

 for every ten blue tickets we had a reward- 

 ticket; and for every ten reward-tickets we 

 were to have a little book. I think the little 

 book I got for committing to memory 1000 

 verses is somewhere in the familv now. I told 

 that little Sunday-school I would not repeat 

 all of those forty verses then and there that I 

 committed to memory 45 years before; but I 



