60 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Our Homes 



A. I. BOOT 



What hath God \\Tought? — Numbers 23:23. 



Lord, thou hast heard the desire of the humble; 

 thou wilt prepare their heart; thou wilt cause thine 

 ear to hear. — Ps. 10:17. 



[To the following fragmentary account of a trying 

 experience with a new " talking " machine, an ex- 

 planation is necessary. The dictaphone is a machine 

 somewhat on the order of^a common phonograph, 

 which enables one to dictate letters on a wax cylin- 

 der which, later on, ip another machine, gives a 

 faithful reproduction of the record to an operator 

 who writes it on a typewriter. In order to save A. 

 I. Root's time and strength while he is in Florida, 

 one of these mechanical stenographers was sent to 

 him, the idea being that he could send the cylinders 

 back to Medina to be typewritten. He did not real- 

 ize how fragile the waxen records were, however, 

 and so he did not pack as carefully as he should 

 have done the first six that he sent. The result is 

 that four of them were broken to " smithereens " in 

 transit. Numbers two and three were intact, and 

 " Our Homes" for this issue is the part of the story 

 they tell. 



Since the first cylinder was broken, as well as 

 numbers four, five, and six, we have no idea what 

 text he selected; but in view of the fact that, in a 

 note accompanying the cylinders, he was very en- 

 thusiastic over what he regarded as one of the new 

 wonders of the age, we have an idea that he would 

 like the ones which head this page. However, if 

 he could have known that two-thirds of his work 

 was to be lost outright because of broken clyinders 

 we fancy that he might have added to it the third 

 verse of the sixth Psalm. 



There was some adjusting needed; and, as will be 

 seen, the account starts right in the midst of the 

 trouble he was having. — H. H. Root.] 



As a great part of mj- life was spent in 

 the watch-making and jewelry business I 

 have been in the habit of handling delicate 

 pieces of machinery and small tools. Very 

 few necessaries for this work, however, 

 were to be found in our Florida home; 

 and another thing, not only has my hearing 

 failed more or less, but my eyesight also. 

 Then the fingers of my right hand that has 

 served me so skillfully for years past were 

 also getting more clumsy and umvieldy 

 than they were forty years ago. Notwith- 

 standing, in a little time I succeeded in get- 

 ling the machine apart and in managing 

 the electrical attachment so that T got along 

 fairly well. Very soon the carriage which 

 travels over the cylinder refused to move. 

 In order to remedy this I had to pull the 

 machine apart still further, and I puzzled 

 several days over the problem of finding a 

 screw or something else that would let it 

 come apart. Finally I told Mrs. Root that 

 I could neither eat nor sleep until I found 

 out what the ti'ouble was with the dicto- 

 phone; and in order to get"at this trouble it 

 must be pulled to pieces. 



I was still ])uzzling over it until bedtime 

 when Mrs. Root came into the room and 

 suggested it was time to kneel down, and 



asked if I wanted to stop just then. As I 

 was getting to be more or less vexed and 

 impatient because I wasn't making any 

 progress, my first impulse was to say that 

 I hadn't time just then. On further re- 

 flection, however, it occurred to me that it 

 was just the time of all times that I needed 

 to krieel down and ask the dear Savior not 

 only to give me patience but skill and un- 

 derstanding in the work that puzzled me so 

 much. So we knelt together, and I praj'ed 

 over just this one thing and nothing else. 

 (By the way, friends, let me stop right 

 hei'e to remark that, though it is right and 

 proper to pra.j for our nation or country or 

 neighbors or relatives and many other 

 things, when in trouble I have found relief 

 by making just one petition, and nothing 

 else, and ending it up with my little pray- 

 er, " Lord, help.") As we arose from our 

 knees the dear wife, as a matter of coui'se, 

 asked if she could help in any way. I 

 told her that there was a pair of ej'^e- 

 glasses for very close vision that I had 

 used in testing eggs, but they had been lost 

 some time. If I had those glasses I thought 

 1 might be able to see in the machine by the 

 aid of the electric light, and find how it 

 might be taken apart. In a little while 

 she produced the needed ej^e-glasses from 

 an old desk, and almost the first thing when 

 I arose from mj- knees I discovered, with 

 file aid of these glasses and the strong 

 electric light, a little bit of screw, smaller 

 than a pin-head, awaj' down in the depths 

 of the machinery. T said to myself, "Sure- 

 ly it can not be i:)ossible that this little 

 screw releases the machinery so it ^vill come 

 apart.'* Now, I had no small screwdriver, 

 such as watchmakers use, with which to 

 remove tlie screw, nor had I any tweezers 

 to pick it up when released — or at least I 

 thought at first that I had none. I won- 

 dered if this little screw would happen to 

 be loose enough so that I could turn it out 

 Avith the point of my knife. It was loose, 

 and in a little time I had it out so that I 

 could get it if I had the proper tool. 

 Then I thought of a pair of tweezers that 

 we used for some time a year ago or more 

 for pulling out stick-fleas. (I am glad 

 to tell you that not a stick-tight flea has 

 shown itself this winter so far, either on 

 ourselves or in any of the poultry-yards. 

 They have been vanquished completely by 

 our heroic treatment, which seems the prop- 

 er means to rid ourselves of this insect 

 pest.) With the aid of these tweezers I 

 soon had the little screw safely deposited 



