O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt 

 ■ — Matt. 14:31. 



Before they call I ■will 



Come unto me, all ye 

 laden. — Matt. 11:28. 



434 



OUR friends, 

 especialJy 

 those w h o 

 are interested in 

 the electric 

 windmill, will 

 doubtless recall 

 I told you last 

 fall I was plan- 

 ning to have the 

 apparatus i n - 

 stalled at my 

 Florida home 

 during the past 

 winter. Well, 

 the electric corporation at Wyndmere, N. 

 D., were behind on orders, and wrote me 

 they could not give me an outfit last win- 

 ter unless they could get some one of their 

 customers to let them fill my order ahead 

 of his own; but after they had offered con- 

 siderably over a hundred dollars to have a 

 nearby customer wait until spring they 

 wrote me they gTeatly regi'etted being 

 obliged to give it up. Well, at that time I 

 had very much set my heart on having the 

 arrangement right away, and had already 

 at considerable expense shipped my elec- 

 tric auto down to Bradentown to have it 

 in readiness, and felt as if I really could 

 not give it up. And tho it might be to some 

 extent a foolish notion I — to quote a line 

 from that well-known hymn — "took it to 

 the Lord in prayer," and I prayed over it, 

 saying, of course, if my request were con- 

 sistent with the Lord's holy will. 



Now, you may think it a little strange, 

 but I did not (after so many, and almost 

 lifelong years of experience, in answer to 

 prayer), that a telegram came saying they 

 had made arrangements after all so they 

 could send me an outfit. But with the 

 telegram came a letter from our folks in 

 Medina suggesting that it was too near 

 spring, perhaps, and that I had better give 

 it up. Mrs. Root also urged that I should 

 wait until another winter; and after think- 

 ing it over I wrote them a letter to that 

 effect. But after the letter had gone I did 

 not feel satisfied, and I knelt down by my 

 bedside and prayed over it. Now let me di- 

 gress right here. 



I had a praying mother, as I have per- 

 haps many times told you. I often over- 

 heard her voice in prayer for one after 

 another of her flock of seven children. As 

 T was the weakest and feeblest one of the 

 whole seven, pei'hai)s she prayed for me a 

 little more than for the others; and as the 

 doctors told her she must keep me out of 

 doors and get me interested in making 

 garden, keeping chickens, etc., she and I 

 were much together; and when troubles 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



answer. — ISA. 65 :24. 

 that labor and are heavy 



July, 1918 



came up (and 

 they were trou- 

 bles, I assure 

 you) when our 

 finances were so 

 low that it was 

 sometimes hard 

 work to provide 

 food and fuel 

 for the flock of 

 seven, she some- 

 tim.es used to 

 say something 

 like this: 

 "Amos, you 



need not worry about this trouble any 

 more. I have been praying over it, and I 

 have had the assurance tliat it will come out 

 all right." And, dear reader, it rejoices 

 my heart to be able to tell you that the 

 matters mother prayed over did come out 

 right in the end. 



Well, after I had prayed over the matter 

 of the electric outfit I too had a feeling 

 (and a happy feeling it was) that it would 

 come out all right, and there would be noth- 

 ing wrong in sending a telegram to over- 

 take the letter I had just written. So I 

 wired the electric company to go ahead and 

 ship my outfit as speedily as possible. 

 When my message got there the tempera- 

 ture was away down below zero ; but not- 

 withstanding that, they pulled down a mill 

 recently put uid for their own use at the 

 factory and shij^ped it by freight to 

 Bradentown, Fla. Now, with the conges- 

 tion on the railroads I knew it was risky 

 business; but the whole outfit arrived in 

 about three weeks — sooner than I had any 

 reason to expect it. The whole outfit was 

 sent by freight, as I told you; but the 

 switchboard, being such a very important 

 part of the apparatus, was sent by express 

 in order to be dead sure it would be on 

 hand. And, by the way, said switchboard 

 has not reached Florida yet, so far as I 

 know. The iron frame that holds it came 

 thru promptly ; but the switchboard itself 

 has never been found. Now, in order to 

 enable me to use the apparatus in a crude 

 way, George put up a wooden switchboard 

 with a temporary arrangement to start 

 and stop the current according to the move- 

 ment of the wind. After waiting for about 

 two weeks, when George was badly wanted 

 at tlie factory in North Dakota we were 

 obliged to give it up, and he returned home. 

 I assured him again and again that 1 

 should get mixed up on that temporary 

 switchboard and get something wrong. My 

 good father used to quote to us the old 

 saying that it is hard work to teach an old 

 dog new tricks ; and as I approach 79 years 



