1901 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



911 



OUR 



homes; 



BY A.I. ROOT. 



In all thy ways acknowledge him. and he shall di- 

 rect thy paths. — Prov. 3:() 



Yesterday afternoon I g-ave the children 

 at a Sunday-school convention ii talk on 

 " paths <'md path-makingf, " using' the above 

 for my text. For a week or more I have 

 been getting' much happiness in repeatini^ 

 the text over. No matter how many tiines I 

 repeat it, each time it comes over me like a 

 strain of sweet music. I have in times past 

 told 3rou of how my life is made jo3'ous by 

 texts of Scripture that come to me suddenly 

 with a new lig-ht and a new meaning". It 

 was so with this one. While thinking'' about 

 my stibject of path-making, and the number 

 of beiiutiful texts containing the word paf/t, 

 this one suddenly occurred to ine, and I be- 

 g'an wondering- if it was not one I had al- 

 ready used. We have no concordance of 

 any kind in our humble home out here in 

 the woods, and I beg-au to wonder if we 

 could find where it w^as in our little Bible. 

 Mrs. Root said she thoug-ht it was in Prov- 

 erbs, and in less than a minute I had it. 

 It seemed to burst on me like a volume of 

 sunshine, all at once. What a glorious 

 promise it contains for all who are, day by 

 day, all throug^h their lives, striving- to 

 " acknowledge him " in all their daily acts 

 and ways! How often do we say, " If I 

 onl\' knew what to do " ! or, better still, "If 

 I onU' knew what God would have me do in 

 the matter "I jmd here is the promise, that, 

 while we are acknowled.ging- him, he 7i'ill 

 direct our paths for us. 



Sometimes it is a little hard to stop our 

 busj' work long- enough, or, if you choose, 

 to interrupt our busy work, to acknowledge 

 him. A man was plowing- for me, break- 

 ing u.p ground in the woods. It was trying 

 work for both man and team, and he com- 

 menced to swear. I hesitated a little about 

 hindering him long enoug-h to remonstrate; 

 and, in fact, I feared, tired and heated up 

 as he was (for it was near dinner-time), he 

 might swear worse. Well, the result was 

 one of my " happy surprises. " He stopped, 

 looked a little foolish, and then began to 

 latigh. He said his wife would be '* awful 

 glad " if I could cuie hiin of swearing, and 

 finally admitted lie would be glad too. He 

 said he g'-ot " into it " among the Itimber- 

 men, and he had tried hard man}^ times to 

 break ofi^. I stopped him several times 

 when he forgot, for a few diiys, and it is 

 now months since I have heard him swear 

 at all. Later on I learned he told some of 

 his friends how I had helped him to get 

 over and away from his bad habit. 



Now, friends, this kind of work is " ac- 

 knowledging him " before men. It is let- 

 ting'' everybody know, especially when you 

 are among strangers, that you belong to 

 Christ Jesus, heart and soul. Of course 

 you know I mean a reasonable and consis- 



tent acknowledging. If a man engag-es to 

 work for you, and may be witti you for 

 some little time, it is your dutj^ — na3% j'oiu- 

 privilege — to try to do him good. 



Well, God promises to "direct" the 

 " paths " of all who are in this wa3'^ "show- 

 ing their colors " for him and his work. Is 

 it not a glorious promise? and is it not a 

 glorious privilege to feel that the great Fa- 

 ther above is directing and guiding us? 



" Now, I often feel it is a strange thing 

 that I have felt called to come away oft" here 

 in this out-of-the-way place and start a little 

 humble home. I have wondered at it m3'- 

 seif, and I have often prayed over it. I 

 have asked God to indicate to me plainly if 

 it was his will and his call, instead of only 

 one of my many hobbies, and onl3' a craze 

 for something new and dift'erent. When I 

 urged Mrs. Root to come with me and share 

 this " cabin in the woods " she felt sure she 

 would be homesick; and when I was absent 

 on m3^ wheelrides, etc., she felt sure she 

 "couldn't stand it." This seemed reason- 

 able, and I confess I feared it would only 

 prove a bkmder and a loss of time and 

 mone3\ Now for the result. 



We came here for three or four weeks; 

 but she enjo3'ed this new life in the woods 

 so much she proposed extending it to eight 

 weeks or more. When I was away last 

 evening (at the convention) she was alone, 

 far from neighbors, during- a prett3'- severe 

 storm, after night, but she wrote home to 

 the children, explaining the sittiation, but 

 added she was well and happy, and not the 

 least bit homesick. Why (do you ask?) does 

 God want us oft" here? Well, I don't know 

 exactl3' just 3'et, but I think I can now see 

 pretty clearly one reason. B3' this experi- 

 ence I am learning more about the homes of 

 the average country people than I ever 

 could have learned otherwise. Perhaps I 

 should say of the humble country homes 

 rather than of the averag'-e. Let me go into 

 detail a little. 



Our home in Ohio is warmed bv' an ap- 

 paratus (hot water and exhaust steam from 

 the factory), so autornatic that we have 

 nothing to do with fuel. Last night the 

 rainstorm turned to snow, and to-day the 

 ground is white; but we have a new wood- 

 house filled with blocks of dry wood, and 

 we can g-et to it all through that trapdoor 

 near the stove, which I have told you about. 

 The smallest size of cooking-stove was our 

 first purchase; but we found that expensive 

 in two wa3's — the wood tnust be cut up very 

 fine to go into it ; and to keep the room 

 warm the stove needed almost constant re- 

 plenishing. The wood itself costs nothing-, 

 and during the winter it is cut into 18-inch 

 blocks, and piled up, for about 50 cents a 

 cord. Well, after we decided to stay until 

 after November we built an annex 1 8''2 XIO) 

 for the cook-stove and utensils. Then we 

 got a very pretty drum stove (named the 

 "Flirt"), for $4.50, that will take any of 

 the blocks of wood without splitting; in 

 fact, the opening in the top for fuel is a cir- 

 cle 11 inches across. This stove will make 



