7.5'i 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUEE. 



Oct. 16. 



tentiou to it. If g-oods were received dama^'ed or 

 short count, you always replaced them, even it' to do 

 so it cost you double their value. I do not wonder at 

 j'our being overrun with orders, and that every 

 other year or so you are obliged to enlarge your fa- 

 cilities to aeconiniodate your incieasing business. 

 People will clu'eifiilly scud long distances, and pay • 

 heavy freiglit chaiiics. when they know that by so 

 doing eveiy thing they I'eceive will be just as it was 

 represented to be. 1 have had considerable dealing 

 with strangers, or people living at a distance, and 1 

 know a little of the self-denial it takes to meet com- 

 plaints and bear losses tor which one is in no way 

 responsible. 1 have received much encoura^'cment 

 from your Home talks. It does me good to i-ead 

 of your trials and experiences, because they are so 

 much like my own. May your life be siiared unto 

 us many years yet is my prayer. J. D. Brands. 

 Warrington, N. J., Sept. 30. 



Perhaps it will be well to look into the cir- 

 cumstances that caused our friend to write 

 such a letter as the above. He was one of the 

 many whose goods were delayed last spring: 

 and when the time came to make payment he 

 was behind; therefore he wrote ns as follows. 

 You will observe that the date is earlier than 

 in the letter given above. 



Friend Roof:— I believe that the time idlowed me 

 on your bill of June 19 will be up on Friday, the 19th 

 inst. I fear that 1 shall not have the money by that 

 date, but I think I may be able to pay you a i)art (»■ 

 the whole of it some time during the week following. 

 The man whom I ordered the goods tor refused to 

 take them because of the lateness of the season 

 when tiiey reached me. so I am obliged to carry them 

 over until another year. Will you please send me a 

 postal, stating thereon the full amount, with inter- 

 est, duo y,m uji to date? J. D. Brands. 



Wariington, N. J., Sept, 15. 



From the above you will see that our book- 

 keepers had been asking him to pay interest. As 

 soon as the transaction came to my eye I re- 

 monstrated against asking him for intei'est at 

 all; but the book-keepers replied that this was 

 according to the rule, and suggested that a dif- 

 ferent rule be made, where customers have 

 been put out because of our delay in filling or- 

 ders. Now, friends, please do not get the idea 

 that I am the only one in our establishment 

 who strives to love his neighbor as himself. 

 The head book-keeper fell in with the sugges- 

 tion with a hearty good will; and I find on the 

 back of his letter she dictated about as follows: 



"My good friend B., under the circumstances 

 we shall make you no charge for interest, and 

 you need not pay until another year unless it is 

 convenient. If convenient to pay no\\', you 

 may dedtxct interest on the whole amount of 

 the value of the goods for one year." 



Now, the above is only simple justice. Any 

 sujjply-dealer who is so far behind in filling 

 orders tliat the purchaser is obliged to keep the 

 goods over until another season, should not ask 

 pay for them until the customer is nmdy to or- 

 der them for another season. If he has already 

 paid for them, he ought to have a rebate equal 

 to the value of the money, for the year he is out 

 of the use of it. This is" simply, in my opinion, 

 doing as you would be done by; and even then 

 it does not make up for the disappointment and 

 perhaps heavy loss resulting from not having 

 the goods when they were wanted. If we who 

 are dealing in supplies will come up to this 

 standard, perhaps it would help us to be a little 

 more prompt in filling orders. It may be said, 

 on our .side of the question, that no one should 

 wait for goods until he is ready to use them. 

 This is true; but at the same time, every sup- 

 ply-dealer ought to be able to fill an order, say 

 within 30 days after its receipt. If he can not 

 he should pay damages to a reasonable extent. 

 If the two parties can not agree as to just what 

 the damages should be, I would resort to arbi- 

 tration. Let me say. to the creditof otir custom- 

 ers, that, although I have repeatedly asked 



them to send in their bill for damages <where 

 the fault was ours and not the railroad com- 

 pany's), as yet very few indeed have asked 

 damages. Only one man has made a claim 

 that we could iiot consistently pay. This man 

 wanted •'R;3.5.()0 damages where the goods he pur- 

 chased really amounted to only about half that 

 amount. We have only once iieen called upon 

 to pay for the loss of a honey crop, and this was 

 where the circumstances were very aggravat- 

 ing — see Homes for Aug. 1. This was where 

 one of oui' clerks made Bracken County to read 

 Breckenridge County; and as this blunder 

 caused the friends to be looking for their goods 

 day by day, and thereby lose the honey-crop, 

 we decided to pay the full amotmt. The one 

 who ciiaugcd the name of the county paid 18.00; 

 the two women who passed that postal caid by, 

 paid each $4.50 for their carelessness, and I paid 

 $18.00, making altogether $35.00 for the loss of a 

 honey crop. 



Now. to those who say they can not stand 

 such a way of doing business, I feel like repeat- 

 ing my favorite little text: "O ye of little faith! 

 wherefore do ye doubt?" But, please remem- 

 ber that I do not advise that anybody should 

 throw away his goods or money in a loose and 

 slipshod sort of way. This wo\ild .not be ac- 

 cording to the Scriptures at all. In my talk 

 about managing horses, in our previous issue, I 

 told you the horse must be firmly disciplined, 

 and that the rod should not be spared when 

 Heeded. So it is in business. We are by no 

 manner of means to let those who are evil-dis- 

 posed run over us. To let people make their 

 own terms in a lazy, shiftless sort of way, is 

 entirely another thing. But when you have 

 wronged a neighbor or customer by a delay or 

 by a blunder, make haste to do as you would be 

 done by: and as it is only human to be selfish, I 

 would recommend that "you go a little beyond 

 the mark, to make sure of being just. Otir text 

 says, "Good measure;" and it also tells us that 

 those who give good measure shall get good 

 measure in return. Faith in (xod is a grand 

 thing; and faith" in a fellow-man is a grand 

 thing also. When yoti give good fair measure 

 and good quality, please have faith enough in 

 your fellow-man to believe it will all come back 

 again — yes," shaken together and running over." 



Now a few words more in regard to gaining 

 the confidence, esteem, faith, and good will of 

 this great outside world round about us. Who 

 can tell what a reputation is worth? The Bible 

 says, "A good name is rather to be chosen than 

 great riches;" and, O my friends, I am sure — in 

 fact, I become surer of it every day — that no 

 one begins to know the half of the truth im- 

 plied in this little text. The untutored savage 

 — "savage" is not quite the word after all — the 

 man or boy of the world who is profoundly igno- 

 rant of I}ible precepts, and who knows nothing 

 of the spirit of Christ Jesus, may be excusable 

 for thinking that, if he saves a few cents each 

 day by cheating and sharp practice, he will ul- 

 timately become rich. Ten cents a day would 

 be $30.00 a year, and in ten years this would be 

 $30a.(X). Why. he would not have enough to buy 

 a farm, even if he cheated ten cents' worth ev- 

 ery day for a fi/eturee. Yet a great many seem 

 to think they can lay up property by cJicating. 

 Well, now. suppose, on the other liand, he loses 

 10 cents a day in the effort to be fair and honor- 

 able, and to give, in the language of the text, as 

 he expects it to be given to him. He may be 10 

 cts. out of pocket for a few days, withot"it get- 

 ting any thing back; but pretty soon somebody 

 will feel grateful for these few cents given for 

 Christ's S(tke, and he will remember it, and 

 watch for an opportunity to pay it back. And, 

 dear friends, it is only hiiman nature for him to 

 pay it back twice over, or mare. It is also hu- 



