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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



29 



was moH' tawdry finery about it: but the woman 

 who had it in charge wanted fc'.OO a day just 

 foi' the room alone, to say notliing of board. 

 Sicl< at heart, guilty in conscience, and home- 

 sick withal. I decided we should have to take 

 this—at least for one day. Then somebody 

 told me I could get a nice room at a low price, 

 but the man who owned it was clerking in a 

 saloon, and 1 must go into the saloon to see him; 

 and on the principle that drowning men catch 

 at straws — no. no I it was not (iiiite so bad as 

 that. I know, but I felt a good deal that way— 

 I ventured for the first time in my life to enter 

 a saloon on Sutiday, and it was a New Orleans 

 saloon besides. Oh dearl to think that anybody 

 can want to stay in such a place, amid such 

 talk and such surroundings, and especially on 

 God's holy day! 



So far I had abstained from riding on the 

 street-cars: but I was so sweaty and used up that 

 I felt that I must have relief. Besides, if 1 

 should attempt to go back all the way on foot 

 we should never get to church at all. Oh how 

 I did long to be with Christian people as they 

 gathered into a Christian church about that 

 time every Sunday morning I I thought of the 

 words of my text at the head of this talk, and I 

 felt them as I never did before. Was it po-sible 

 that David felt as I did when he said, " My soul 

 longeth. yea. even fainteth for the courts of tlie 

 Lord'"? At any rate, those words seemed better 

 fitted to express my feelings then than any 

 language I could ever have framed myself. It 

 seemed as if I had traveled almost all over the 

 whole great city of New Orleans : but I was 

 honest when I told Sue that I had not found 

 even one decent home for human beings. To- 

 ward the close of my walk I met people on the 

 way to churches, with their Bibles and hymn- 

 books; but somehow even these people did not 

 look like the Christians I had been wont to 

 meet with on Sunday. I suppose my guilty 

 conscience was at the bottom of the whole of 

 my bad feelings that morning. When I told 

 Sue the situation, she said at once that we 

 should go to the nearest hotel and then get to 

 church. But. lo and behold! there were no ho- 

 tels near the depot. There were some low 

 whisky-shops that did a little hotel -keeping as 

 a kind of side issue, but we felt as if we could 

 not go there. Everybody recommended us to 

 the St. Charles: and. even though it would cost 

 $4.00 'a day for each of us. we decided it was 

 the shortest cut toward "remembering the 

 Sabbath day, to keep it holy."' Of course, we 

 had to ride on a street-car, for the St. Charles 

 was two or three miles away. It was the same 

 car I came up on: and I knew that my compan- 

 ion must be more shocked than she ever was 

 before in all her life, by the sights that met my 

 eye as I came up. It was where the car passed 

 the French Market. She soon began to make 

 protests as we came near people in the rush 

 and whirl of busy traffic on God's day. I told 

 her to wait a little and she would be astonished 

 still more. A little further, and a great crowd 

 ■of people — thousands, in fact — were "' hollering'' 

 and yelling, and jostling each other, while auc- 

 tioneers, street-fakirs, venders of all sorts of 

 games and tawdry finery, made such a hubbub 

 and roar in their efforts to shout the merits of 

 their wares, that it was like a little Babel on 

 T^arth. 



I iiave forgotten just what Sue said, 

 but it was something like this: " Why. hus- 

 band, is it ])OSsible that here in the United 

 Stati's. and on God's holy day, there can be 

 found such a disgraceful scene as this?" When 

 I was talking to a friend about it afterward he 

 replied. " Oh! the thing is not near as bad now 

 as it used to be years ago. They have stopped 

 the drinking, and quieted down the disorderly 



element, so it is quite respectable now to what 

 it was once."* 



We finally came on to a street that did con- 

 tain some nice stores and buildings: but it was 

 full of people, and there was little to indicate to 

 anybody that it was other than a week day. 

 We approached the great St. Charles Hotel. 

 When I thought of mixing in with that busy 

 crowd there, it seemed to me as if I could not 

 stand it. I had been praying to mvself for quite 

 a little while — yes. my heart had been full of 

 prayer and promises to God. that, if he would 

 deliver us this time, as he had so many times 

 before, I would try hard to avoid being obliged 

 to travel on Sunday hereafter. Then somebody 

 touched my arm, and a pleasant-looking man 

 said, '• Excuse me, friends, but I take it you are 

 strangers here, and may be you would like quiet 

 and respectable accommodations right in this 

 neighborhood, where it will cost you only half 

 as much as at the St. Charles." I said at once 

 that he was just the friend we were looking for; 

 but Mrs. Root suggested that we look at the 

 room first. I felt as if I would take any thing 

 with my eyes shut just then, providing I could 

 get it of somebody who talked and acted in such 

 a frendly way as did that man. We were ush- 

 ered into the room, that cost two dollars a day 

 each, including board. As soon as the door 

 was closed, I said, " Thank God, we are finally 

 where we can get ready for church." I had 

 taken it for granted that our room was quite 

 respectable : but v/hen I expressed as much. 

 Sue took hold of one of the pillow-slips and 

 stripped it back. There it was— grease, dirt, 

 and filth, simply covered up by a thin bit of 

 starched white cloth. Then she lifted a por- 

 tion of the carpeting with her foot. Now, in 

 our home, if you lift a carpet or pillow-slip you 

 will not find any thing out of sight that does 

 not correspond with what is in sight. The car- 

 pets and rugs, and every thing that will hold 

 dirt, get out on to the clothes-line, and get such 

 a spanking that they ought to remember it ever 

 afterward. We were alone. I put out my 

 hand to my wife, and we knelt down and asked 

 God to take us poor helpless sinners into his 

 care and keeping. Then we hastily slicked up. 

 and joined the crowd of people that were on 

 their way to one of the large fine churches in 

 New Orleans. The simple fact of joining in 

 with a lot of people who looked and acted 

 like Christians, was like balm to our rroubled 

 souls. There was an immense audience, and 

 the sermon was a grand one — just such a 

 one as you might expect for such a nice, 

 clean, intelligent- looking congregation of peo- 

 ple. Toward the close of his remarks the 

 preacher spoke of the beautiful monuments to 

 be found here and there all through New Or- 

 leans. He spoke of the beautiful statue of 

 Margaret, that I have described to you before. 

 Then he used words something like these: 



•' My friends, why have the people of New 

 Orleans seen fit to thus preserve the memory of 

 our departed great? Did the man whose mar- 

 ble statue we see in the park in front of this 

 church win his right to be thus remembered by 



*In all my travels, north, south, east, and west, I 

 had never before come across any such state of af- 

 fairs as met my eyes and ears that Sunday morning 

 in New Orleans. San Francisco has been called a 

 wicked city; but 1 have been in almost every part 

 of it, and on Sunday too, and yet no such din and 

 clatter and disorder and uproar ever before came to 

 my ears. Still, tlie people in and around that French 

 market seemed to take it as a matter of fact and an 

 everyday occurrence. The neare.st approacli to the 

 scene I have ever seen is the crowd around a low- 

 lived circus just before the door Is open. Before 

 beer-selling and gambling were banished from oui' 

 State fairs, we u.sed to see, years ago, something a 

 little Uke it, only on a smaller scale. 



