956 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



Our Homes. 



He shall call upon me, and [ will answer him: I 

 will be with him in trouble.— Psalm 91 :!.'). 



Thauksglviug day was bright and warm. It 

 aftorded aa excellent opportunity for some out- 

 door work thai very much needed to be done. 

 Let rae explain. Three years ago I described 

 our little greenhouse across the way. 1 have 

 told you in detail of the strange blundering 

 way in which I made the discovery that green- 

 houses could be warmed automatically by 

 means of exhaust steam. In my first experi- 

 ments I was so much afraid the thing would 

 not work that I picked up pieces of old rusty 

 iron pipe, hastily put them together, and push- 

 ed them up through the tiles. Somewhat to 

 my surprise, and much lo my delight, the thing 

 worked beautifully. Summer and winter, 

 month after month and year after year, the hot 

 water went its rounds, giving out its heat over- 

 head in the greenhouse, and then going back to 

 the point of starting, to be warmed up again. 

 Last winter, however, while I was in Florida 

 the circulation gradually slacked up. and dur- 

 ing the mo^t severe weather the pipes cooled 

 down in spite of every thing that Ernest and 

 the boys could do. They were cold when it was 

 most important that they should be hot. 



It was so late in the season .» lien I returned, 

 that we managed to get along with our stuff. 

 When I went at it this fall to straighten the 

 thing out, the difficulty seemed to be somewhat 

 obscure; so the matter was neglected until 

 Thanksgiving day. On that day, with the 

 help of Frank, one of my faithful boys, I decid- 

 ed to locate the mischief, at any rate. Instead 

 of being in the greenhouse, it proved to be 

 somewhere in the underground line of pipe 

 that the obstruction lay. Now, this line of 

 pipe is not only about two feet under ground, 

 but it also runs through a six-inch tile. We 

 could d\gdown to the tile, but we could not lift 

 out a length without breaking it. because the 

 iron pipe is in the way. Frank and I made 

 excavations in different places on Thanksgiv- 

 ing afternoon, but did not succeed in locating 

 the trouble at anv exact point. 



The little pipe I used to make my first experi- 

 ment with was only ?4 inch in diameter; but it 

 worked so nicely there that it had stood doing 

 its work all these years. One thing I decided 

 on Thanksgiving night was that I would never- 

 more use oid pipe to put under ground; and I 

 also would never again be guilty of using pipe 

 as smatl as % inch. One inch is small enough 

 and cheap enough; but IV would be better. 



On Monday morning I was to go to Atlanta, 

 so there were only two days left— Friday and 

 Saturday — and these two days the last of No- 

 vember were very apt to be stormy and cold. 

 During the night I thought over all the things 

 that were to be done the next day. First, these 

 hot- water pipes were to be fixed before the 

 weather became any colder. Some additional 

 radiators were to be put in at the house also. 

 Some more copy was to be furnished for Gi.ean- 

 INGS, and this was to be out so it could reach 

 the friends around Atlanta, before the conven- 

 tion of Dec. 4 and 5. Other matters were crowd- 

 ing in various parts of the factory. 



Friday morning proved to be all that could 

 be wished, so far as tveather was concerned, 

 and I fairly trembled to think of the number of 

 things I was to look after before I took my trip 

 to the South. By some of my own bungling, 

 there was no meat ready for breakfast; and 

 when a boy went to the meat-market he had to 

 wait nearly half an hour for them to open up 

 shop. The boy who makes it a business to feed 



the horses so as to have them ready to hitch up 

 when the whistle blows, also failed to come 

 around. Perhaps it was because it was just 

 after Thanksgiving. The as>istant engineer 

 had hurt his finger a day or two before, and 

 the engineer wanted Harold (the young plumb- 

 er whom 1 have mentioned before) to fire for 

 him. He thought no one else would answer. 



Breakfast was finally ready, and had to be 

 eaten just as my men ought to have been get- 

 ting their orders for the day. It was hard work 

 to obey the doctor's orders to take plenty of 

 time for my meals. Then it was a task once 

 more to get the family together after a late 

 breakfast, for morning prayers. Satan whis- 

 pered that, under existing circumstances, fam- 

 ily prayers would better be omitted for just 

 once. As I have never listened to tSatan. how- 

 ever, especially when I wanted advice in such 

 matters, his suggestion did not amount to very 

 much. 



When I got over to the factory, somebody 

 had promised that Harold should do some 

 plumbing for a neighbor; then another man 

 who was hurrying ?ns job of piping could not 

 be waited on because half a carload of New 

 Queen potatoes had been hastily piled in the 

 cellar on top of the iron pipes he was waiting 

 for. 



Frank and Fred had got the iron pipes apart, 

 and were pushing a wire down through them 

 as far as it could go, to start the accumulations 

 of rust and scale; but the water could not be 

 made to go through, even under pressure. The 

 boys were doing the best they could; but they 

 needed more pressure, and every thing seemed 

 to need more brains all around— perhaps brains 

 of mature experience. I called a man who had 

 done such work, and directed him to attach a 

 Whitman fountain pump to the end of the iron 

 pipe, and force the water through. Somebody 

 had borrowed the pump. When it was hunted 

 up, the valves would not work. I finally decid- 

 ed that we should have to take a brand-new 

 $6.00 pump from the stock in the store out there 

 into the dirt and water. But there were not 

 any ?iew' pumps — the stock had been sold out. 

 The clerks told me they had another kind that 

 was better, but it could not be attached to our 

 iron piping — that is, without too much time 

 and expense. 



At this juncture the plumbers over at the 

 house were hindered in their job by lack of 

 some special fittings. The train that was to 

 bring tliem did not bring any thing. The 

 printers were wanting my last Special Notices, 

 so the form could go to press. I was already 

 overburdened with cares; the beautiful warm 

 forenoon was passing away, and my heart had 

 not been cheered by success — that is, very much 

 success— in any direction. The helpers v/ere 

 all doing their duty; but wherever I was boss 

 it devolved upon me to say what should be done 

 at this unexpected crisis. 



Surely there were bdrdens enough that fore- 

 noon for Thanksgiving day. But it seemed 

 that a still harder one to bear was coming. 

 One whom I had been instrumental in bringing 

 to Christ Jesus was backsliding. The back- 

 sliding had got to a point where I must stop 

 right then and there, and decide what was to 

 be done. From what I have written in these 

 Home Papers, and from what.you know of me, 

 very likely you will wonder where my faith 

 and trust in an overruling Power were at such 

 a time. Well, I am afraid I had been too busy 

 to ever think of asking for God's help. I am 

 afraid that I had a sort of idea, when I got up 

 in the morning, that I could manage without 

 his help. You see, I am older than I used to 

 be, and am feeling quite strong and well, and I 



