ATGUST 15. 1915 



687 



A. I. Root 



OUM HOME 



Apply tliy heurt unto instruction, ami thine ears 

 to the words of knowledge. — Prov. 23:12. 



Buy the truth, and sell it not; also wisdom, and 

 insiruotion, and understanding. — Prov. 23:23. 



Mr. James G. Graj', who was for many 

 years foreman of our mamifaeturiiig- eslab- 

 lishmcMit, died early on the morning of July 

 15; and I think it may be interesting to the 

 readers of Gi.kanings to go over with me 

 the events of a busy life that ended only in 

 death in the S5th year of Mr. Gray's age. 



Our readers will pardon me once more, 

 if, in order to make this a continuous story, 

 1 repeat, or partially repeat, some things 

 I hat have been given already on these pages. 

 1 was perhaps eight or nine years old when 

 Mr. Gray came to Mogadore, Summit 

 Co., Ohio, to teach penmanship and orna- 

 mental di-aw'ing. I think he was about 

 eighteen at that time. His wonderful pen- 

 manship created a stir in our little town, 

 and his ornamental drawings were a w'on- 

 <ler. In fact, people would have been 

 tempted to say he did not do it himself were 

 it not for the fact that he would take almost 

 any pen or any paper, and astonish the 

 natives in just a few minutes. I have for- 

 gotten what the tuition was for learning to 

 write ; but the ornamental drawing cost, if I 

 ren^.ember correctly, about $25. He soon 

 h.ad quite a class in penmanship, and those 

 who took lessons would, if still alive, show 

 it in their hand-wjiting up to this day. He 

 was so well liked, in fact, that when winter 

 came so that it was too cold for him to 

 travel easily, he was engaged to teach the 

 Mogadore high school; and, of course, the 

 same beautiful penmanship was taught in 

 the common soiiool. At that time I had just 

 got hold of the book " Conversations on 

 Chemistry," and also Parker's Philosophy. 

 This was before I went to Wellsville, as 

 mentioned in a former paper. One evening 

 after school our teacher said something like 

 this: 



"Amos, you iiave some home-made appa- 

 ratus with which you are making experi- 

 ments, I gather from what you have said in 

 your recitations. Now, if you do not object 

 I will go over this evening to look over 

 your apparatus; and if I can help you in 

 your experiments T shall be glad to do so." 



Let me now digi'ess a little. There were 

 just two in our family of seven who seemed 

 to have a particular liking for books. One 

 of them was myself and the other was a 

 sister some older than T. In fact, she was 

 so diligent in her studies that a small dis- 

 trict school out in the country was offered 



lier, wlieii she was only fifteen (and wearing 

 short dresses) ; and so far as I can recall 

 slie taught it very acceptably. 



Well, of coui-se I had my rude home- 

 made apparatus and chemicals all ready for 

 Mr. Gray when he came to make the visit; 

 but something on a different line caught his 

 attention before he gave me much notice. 

 It was the bright young schoolma'am; and 

 1 remember telling my mother, almost dole- 

 fully, that I did not believe Mr. Gray cared 

 so much about chemistry after all, for he 

 kept talking to the young schoolma'am. Hy 

 and by, however, he gave me his whole 

 attention. I had been trying to make a 

 pneumatic trough for handling gas&s; but 

 my arrangement leaked in spite of glue, 

 melted rosin, etc. In some way I had found 

 out that JVIr. Gray was a cai'penter as well 

 as a Avriting-teacher and schoolteacher. If 

 I remember correctly, his parents sent him 

 to Oberlin to school, but later on they found 

 he was spending more time in a chair-fac- 

 tory near by than he was in school; but 

 when they discovered he had become quite 

 an expert carpenter, even at that early age, 

 (hey did not feel so much troubled about 

 it.* My father was also a carpenter, as I 

 have told you, and had a chest of tools. 

 When Mr. Gray looked at my leaky trough 

 J said to my teacher, " Do you suppose you 

 can make a wooden box like this, and make 

 joints. so tight it will not leak, even if there 

 were no cement on it?" 



At this he glanced toward my father, 

 with a quizzical look on his face, and they 

 discussed the problem of making a wooden 

 box that would not leak. My father opened 

 his tool-chest, and ]\Ir. Gray selected a 

 smoothing-plane, sharpened it up according 

 to his notion, and made the box with a shelf 

 to hold mj' glass bottles and jars; and when 

 1 poured it full of water it did not leak a 

 drop. How many carpenters of the present 

 daj' are equal to such a problem? A year 

 or two afterward, when Mr. Gray married 

 the young schoolma'am, there happened to 

 be an "electricity show" at (he same hour 

 of the night the wedding occurred. When 

 my mother and sisters said I must stay and 

 be present at the wedding I became rebel- 

 lions. The idea of anything preventing me 

 from attending an " electricity show ! " I 

 think they changed the time of the wedding 

 so as to come a little earlier or later. About 

 this time an older brotiier of mine was plan- 



• This was before the world thought of carpentry 

 and growing corn and potatoes as one of tlie 

 branrhes of a ronimon-sfhool education. 



