360 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1. 



Take care of liim: and whatsoever thou spendest 

 more, when I come again 1 will repay thee.— Luke 

 10:35. 



Professors of religion are often criticised be- 

 cause they do not make a more practical use of 

 what they profess. Our enemies say we talk 

 beautifully In the prayer-meeting; but when it 

 comes to putting these very ideas into practice 

 in every-day life we forget all about it. Well, 

 there may be some truth in this. The religion 

 of Christ Jesus goes against the grain. It is 

 not natural to us. We are human, and Christ's 

 teachings are divine. 



There is one class of neighbors that we have 

 had considerable to do with lately. In fact, I 

 suppose most of you see more or less of them. 

 I allude to the tramp element. Come to think 

 of it, I do not know that they are neighbors 

 after all. Some of them would be neighborly, 

 and once in a while we are forced to the conclu- 

 sion that they are our neighbors, although a 

 good deal of the time it is a hard matter to de- 

 cide just what true Christianity would say we 

 ought to do in regard to them. Perhaps I have 

 told you before that we have an arrangement 

 here at the factory to feed everybody who is 

 willing to work for his daily bread. No matter 

 who comes, nor how many come at once, if they 

 are willing to work an hour in the lumber-yard, 

 or in unloading coal, we furnish them, for such 

 services, a meal of victuals— all they want to eat. 

 This is so well understood that the neighbors 

 far and near tell these people to go right over 

 to Root's factory, and the women-folks there 

 will get him up a good substantial meal, pro- 

 viding he first works one hour. 



Do you say this is generous? Well, it might 

 be if the tramps would avail themselves of the 

 privilege. But they do not regard it as a privi- 

 lege. A month ago I was thinking of making 

 the statement public that not one in a hundred 

 of these fellows would work for a living, even 

 if he had a chance. Sometimes they get mad 

 if you suggest it. One fellow said to Mrs. Root, 

 in an insolent way. " I wonder if you think I 

 am going to shovel coal for an hour just for 

 something to eat." Ana he straightened back 

 on his dignity, and went off offended. A great 

 many times they ask what Mncl of work. When 

 she "tells them it will probably be shoveling 

 coal they invariably go away in some other di- 

 rection. Perhaps I should s&j almost invari- 

 ably. During the severe weather in the month 

 of March, however, something happened, I do 

 not know just what, so that quite a few con- 

 sented to work. Oh! by the way, some of you 

 may suggest that it is hard-hearted and cruel 

 to require a hungry man to shovel coal for an 

 hour when he may not have had sufficient food 

 for perhaps a whole day. Well, it is hard: but 

 every time I have tried feeding these fellews 

 first, and letting them work afterward, I have 

 been swindled— at least, almost every time. 

 They make some pretext or excuse like this: 

 One fellow talked so very honest and fair that 

 I gave him his meal first. After he had been 

 fed, instead of being thankful he seemed to be 

 very much inclined to be overbearing. I told 

 him to go and assist some men off in a certain 

 direction. After he had asked them all around 

 for a "chaw of tobacco," and they had told 

 him they did not use it, and that Mr. Root did 

 not like any of his men to use it, he went away 

 with an oath, declaring that they wouldn't 

 catch him working even an hour for any man 

 80 " narrow-minded." 



Well, along in March, as I was telling you, 

 there was a carload of paper to be run on the 

 trucks into the press-room. Our men were all 

 busy, and three strangers were permitted to do 

 the job. They worked so well that we gave 

 them their meals for several days for doing 

 jobs of this kind. They were a better-looking 

 set of fellows than the average tramp, and bet- 

 ter behaved. They took hold with such energy 

 and muscular vigor that my heart warmed to- 

 ward them. Finally some more came along; 

 and as work was pressing we decided to give 

 them a trial. We had just finished our dinner, 

 and it would be less trouble for the women- 

 folks to feed the whole of them than to get up 

 a meal an hour later; besides, Jacob said his 

 work was not quite ready. They all declared 

 they would work all right if they had their 

 dinner first. I looked into their faces, and told 

 them what bad luck I had had, and every one 

 of them seemed like men who would not be 

 guilty of swindling the man who had befriend- 

 ed them. After they had washed their faces 

 and brushed their hair they looked quite re- 

 spectable. I was in a big hurry, opened the 

 door of the dining-room, and told them to go 

 in. Pretty soon Mrs. S. reminded me that there 

 were sevfin men waiting for their meals, instead 

 of four. Three more than I had noticed had 

 taken advantage of the fact that I had so many 

 to direct all at once, and slipped in unobserved. 

 It seemed too bad to make them get up from 

 the table and go away: besides, I could not 

 tell which were the original ones whom I had 

 bargained with and who were the others. I 

 asked them again if they would all seven work 

 for us a good honest hour. They said they 

 would. 1 left them, and forgot all about the 

 matter. During the afternoon, however, there 

 seemed to be a good deal of merriment in re- 

 gard to my gang of tramps. When I asked for 

 an explanation, the foreman of the lumber- 

 yard said that, about fifteen minutes after they 

 commenced work, a slow-moving freight train 

 passed by, and five of the seven, with a sort of 

 Indian war-whoop, left their work, ran and 

 jumped on the moving train, and that was the 

 last of them. I was not very much surprised. 

 I have had the same experience so often that I 

 blamed myself for being humbugged once more. 

 A few days ago I said to my brother-in-law, 

 who is a railroad man: 



*' Look here, Mr. Holmes, are you in the habit 

 of carrying tramps from one town to another 

 all over the country, free of charge, without so 

 much as even a thank you ? " 



" Yes, that is just exactly what we and every 

 other railroad in the United States are doing." 



"Well, but why do you do it? Isn't there 

 any way to put a stop to such lawless, reckless 

 vandalism ?" 



"I don't know any way. If you do, I wish 

 ycu would tell us how. If they jump on to the 

 passenger trains in this way the conductors and 

 porters can put them off; but how is the con- 

 ductor on a freight train to keep men from 

 jumping on if they want to ? He has not lime 

 to stop and quarrel with tramps, especially 

 where they are two to one. It is not the engin- 

 eer's business, and the brakemen have already 

 been hurt without doing any particular good, 

 as you may know if you read the papers.* 

 These fellows laugh in your face when you talk 



* Only last summer a contractor, who visited Me- 

 dina and made a bid on paving- our streets, was kill- 

 ed on his way home, and it was supposed to be the 

 work of a lot of tramps. In order to reach his home 

 that night he took jiassage on a freight train. A lot 

 of tramps climbed on and occupied the same car, 

 and during the night tliey overpowered him, took 

 his money, and threw him off tlie train. So far as I 

 know, they have never been apprehended. 



