22 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jax. 



ness to you, then your Christianity is not 

 worth mucli. I have before spoken of the 

 tallv we have about doinij tjood ; but I tell 

 you. it is a thousand times better to do your 

 'li({>i as it lies before you on your table or on 

 yoiir desk or in your store or on your farm. 

 Do your duty ; do it Avell. tlioroughly. faith- 

 fully, and uiisellishly. and you will i"»robably 

 do luueh more good than iu starting out as a 

 missionary, wiien it is not your duty to be a 

 missionary. 



Thirix iifh 7i/jt/.— When an order (.-omes to 

 yon tliat for some reason can not be tilled at 

 once.be sure you ))romptIy notify the one 

 giving the order, ami let liim know what to 

 expect, as soon as jtossiblc New liands 

 liave troubli'd more than I can tell you l)y 

 being remiss iu this one respect. For in- 

 stance, a hoy is sent half a mile to the hard- 

 ware store for some liolts of a certain size. 

 When tlie time comes to use them, several 

 men are l)rought to a standstill for want of 

 the bolts. After considerable trouble the 

 boy is foimd. 



••John, where are those bolts you were 

 sent for V " 



" Why, they hadn't got any of that size."" 



■• Then why did you not (.>ome to me at 

 once, and say so V "" 



•• Why, as they hadnt got any, I didn't 

 suppose there was any use of saying any 

 thing more about it. ■■ 



•* What is the nearest thc\ had lo the size 

 vou did Avant '::'"' 



'^ Why. 1 didn't ask them, and they didn't 

 tell me."'" 



Now, the boy was greatly at fault, and / 

 should say the liardware man was at fault in 

 not sending word what he luid. larger (U- 

 smaller, that might answer. It is not only 

 boys. Ijut men and women, that seem to be 

 almost iuvarial)ly guilty of this same way of 

 doing V)usines3. until thus taught different 

 after ccnning here. Obey orders to the best 

 of your ability, and then 'notify the one giv- 

 ing the order the result at once : and t'Sj^e- 

 ci'oi/// should he l)e notified if you can not 

 furnish what he asks for. 



Fourtctnth Hint.— Don t let any transac- 

 tion slip out of your hands until it is com- 

 pleted. For instance, a new clerk once said 

 that a man wanted to know the weight of 

 our two-horse-jiower engines. I told her to 

 write and ask the manufacturer. In a few- 

 days the answer came, and 1 gave it to the 

 clerk. Pretty soon she asked me what she 

 should do with it. •• Why." said I, ''write 

 and tell him the weight of the engine, of 

 cour.se." 



•• Hut. I do not remember who it was." 



••Did you )iot keep his letter or his ad- 

 dress?" 



"No." 



■• Wliatdid you tell him':'" 



•' I did not tell him any thing. " 



••Why. is it possible^ that you neither 

 w rote him nor saved his letter iior kept liis 

 address, after making such an in(iuirv as 

 you did?" 



•• I did just as you told me to do.'' 



You may smile, friends; but I have known 

 older people of both sexes to be guilty of 

 this same thing over and over, until thev 

 had been laughl th.il thev unisl keeji the 



address of such inquirers, in the computa- 

 tion-book, until the answer came. May be 

 we lost the sale of a steam-engine by this 

 little piece of thoughtlessness. 



Fifteenlh Uint.—^ow. friends, in all the 

 foregoing I liave said nothing about lazy 

 clerks. It is a fact, tluit there are some peo- 

 ple who seem to exjiect they are going to get 

 on in the world by lolling "about in a lazy 

 sort of way. gazing abstractedly out of the 

 window, or marking idly with their pen. 

 yawning and wishing it were dinner-time, 

 etc. If you are working for a 1)usiness man 

 who expects to make a success of it. he will 

 V)robably get you out of the way the tirst op- 

 ix)rtunity. if you are one of that sort of peo- 

 ple. In' fact", he can not very well do other- 

 wise: and I am sorry to say. that when a 

 person has got into a luibit of loaUng a great 

 part of his time, so far as my experience goes 

 lie rarely gets out of it. One Avho will accept 

 wages when he is conscious that he has idled 

 a great part of the day is a good way down, 

 on the road to the poorhouse. Soiiietimes 

 when business is dull, and there is not very 

 much to do. we find clerks who will try to 

 spin out their work, as it were, to mate a 

 piece of work that they could do in a couple 

 of hoiu's. if they set about it with energy and 

 zeal, last half a day ov more. It is positively 

 awful, to see to wl'iat ]ierfection some people 

 have brouglit this Ivuack of being al^le to i)Ut 

 on the appearance of Vicing busy a long while 

 on some little job. I have sometimes 

 thought that one might almost as well take 

 money out of the moiiey-drawer of his em- 

 ployer, as to manage in tliis way. •' Do w ith 

 thy might whatsoever thy haiid lindeth to 

 do;" and if you get all the work done up, tell 

 your employer so. Then if he has nothing 

 further for you to do, I think it would be 

 money in your pocket to tell him you are go- 

 ing home, or take a holiday until he has 

 some work to do. If you are a valuable 

 hand, and he does not like to have you away, 

 he will pretty soon find sometliing for you to 

 do. If you are not a valuable hand, set to 

 work to make yourself so. This, of course, 

 refers mostly to hands who work by the 

 hour. A very common way of curing lazi- 

 ness is to set those who are addicted to it at 

 work by the piece. But wliere one has be- 

 come addicted to this haVut of shirking du- 

 ties, it is pretty hard curing him by setting 

 him at work on piece-work. One who will 

 cheat in regard to the amount of work he 

 does will cheat in quality or cheat in count. 

 Some honest clerk will "have to waste his 

 time in watching him ; and my exv)erience is. 

 that the dishonest one eventually beats in 

 the end. Tliere is no other way to do, in the 

 great majority of cases, than to dismiss him 

 to annoy somebody else; and by and by he 

 settles down and down, and eventually" the 

 county inlirmary takes charge of him. This 

 is a sad kind of jiicture, I know ; but I hope 

 you will take warning from it before you are 

 old, and before your habits are tixed.' 



If you want to make progress in bettering 

 your wages, when you work, work; and 

 when you don't work, don"t work. Either 

 go ahead or stop altogether. Many times 

 one doesn't feel like work. .\ow. if you are 

 anxious to get up in the way I have been 



