1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



989 



Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth 

 not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth 

 not behave itstlf unseemly, seeketh not her own, is 

 not easily provoked, thinketh no evil: rejoiceth not in 

 iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, 

 belteveth all things, endureth all things. — I. Cor. 13 : 

 4—7. 



Just 21 years ago this month my Home 

 Paper was in reg-ard to my father's death. 

 He was then 71 years old. As I sit down 

 to dictate this Home Paper, my mother, 90 

 years old, has just been laid away to her 

 rest. Mrs. Root and I were summoned by 

 telegram on Sunday morning-, Nov. 9, and 

 we reached mother's bedside a little less 

 than 48 hours before she breathed her last. 

 She knew me when I called, but was too 

 feeble to say very much. She had asked 

 for me, and it was a satisfaction, evidently, 

 to her to know that I was present with the 

 rest of the children. While she g^radually 

 let g"o of earthly things she grasped on to 

 heavenly things. She died of old age; and 

 her descent down to the edge of the dark 

 river was very gradual indeed. During 

 her last moments, and after her death, we 

 talked over things and occurrences that hap- 

 pened during her long and useful life. 

 When I saj' useful I do not mean particular- 

 ly that she did a great deal of hard muscu- 

 lar work; yet God knows she toiled with 

 hand, feet, and brain, both early and late, 

 until she was too old to work any more. It 

 comos over me now, as it never did before, 

 what an untiri7i«^ worker mother w.ts. We 

 were a family of seven children, inost of us 

 born in a log cabin in the woods. B3' the 

 way, I wonder if it is not the memory of 

 that log cabin in the woods that makes 

 me enjoy so intensely my recent expe- 

 riences around that other cabin in the 

 woods. Well, mother was up earlj^ and 

 late. For a long time she built the fire and 

 then called the children. Perhaps I should 

 expbiin that, for quite a period in my 

 childhood, my father was away from home 

 most of the time. I do remember that the 

 time came when I declared mother should 

 no longer build the fire; and, oh how 

 thankful I am that I took that task out of 

 her hands cold winter mornings! And I 

 did not have a very warm room, especially 

 during z to weather, in which to build that 

 fire. It was not as warm and comfortable 

 as most of your homes; and, come to think 

 about it, in the greater part of our homes 

 nowadays there is no fire to build — natural 

 gas. base burners, furnace in the basement, 

 or .something of that kind, keeps fire all 

 night; and such arran'^ements are, no 

 doubt, very pleasant and comfortable; but 

 I very much doubt, dear friends, if the re- 

 sult in the end produces the good strong 

 constitutions that come — well, let us say 

 from living in a cabin in the woods, where 

 zero weather reigns indoors, in the sleeping- 



room, as well as outside. But I am not go- 

 ing to talk health just now. I wish to talk 

 about the thought embodied in our text. If 

 my mother's name were put in the place of 

 "charity" in the verses I have chosen, it 

 seems to me it would describe her exactly. 

 No doubt thousands of you feel the same 

 way about your mothers, and that is right. 

 If it were not for these patient Christian 

 mothers, the world would have been lost 

 long ago. 



One of the first things I can remember 

 about my mother is her struggling- against 

 not only inconveniences but real difficulties 

 and troubles, in a meek uncomplaining 

 way. She never envied rich people. On 

 the contrary she always rejoiced to see any 

 of her neighbors getting ahead of us. I am 

 sure this is true, dear reader, and I am 

 sure of another thing: It is not a very com- 

 mon trait with humanity. Mother was 

 never " puffed up." Why, those who knew 

 her will laugh when they think of the thing. 

 Our good pastor, in his funeral sermon, 

 made a remark that I wanted to say amen 

 to. But / was not the one to say it, and I 

 believe it is not customarj' to say " amen " 

 at funerals. The remark was something 

 like this: " There was no shatn about 

 grandma Root, as everybody will testify 

 who knew her." Sham! why, bless vour 

 heart, she could not even appreciate a joke. 

 Father and most of the children most keenly 

 appreciated jokes, and often used them to 

 turn away unpleasantness; but mother, in 

 her simple honest-heartedn.ess could never 

 see the use of jokes nor any thing in the 

 line of make-believe. 



"Seeketh not her own." Why, there 

 was never any thing she called her own. 

 Father used to have one drawer in his bu- 

 reau for his important papers; and woe to 

 the child or anybody else who meddled 

 with "pa's drawer." But mother had no 

 drawer that I can remember. Every thing 

 that belonged to mother belonged to all of 

 us; and, no matter how freely we helped 

 ourselves to what was hers, we were sure 

 there would not be any scolding. I was go- 

 ing to say she did not know how to scold, 

 but that is not quite true. If we took any 

 thing that belonged to somebody else she 

 could straighten us out as well as father. 



"Thinketh no evil." If she had one 

 characteristic above all others it was this; 

 and not only this, but it was hard work to 

 make her believe that anybody was deliber- 

 ately bad. She took it for granted at the 

 outset that every one she met was a good 

 man or woman or child; and it was very 

 hard to convince her otherwise. There used 

 to be a Jew peddler who came around our 

 neighborhood; and after he had fieeced the 

 people rig-ht and left until he was notorious, 

 he stopped one daj^ to talk with mother. 

 After he went away she said, before the 

 rest of the family: 



" Why, what a good man that old Mr. P. 

 is!" 



At this we children, father included, 

 burst out laughing at her innocent, honest 



