1894 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



017 



he could tell me all about it. I found him at 

 the postollice. Quite a crowd gathered around 

 the wheel to examine it, and they expressed 

 a.stonishment when I told them I had come 

 on it all the way from Kansas City. Then the 

 doctor undertook to advise me. 



" Look here, stranecr, you will have to let me 

 think about it a litth^ Let's see. If you were 

 going on a horse, I should say take tlie shortest 

 cut over the steepest hills and roughest roads; 

 but if you had a buggy or a cart, I would advise 

 you to go around by H(>rmitage. This would 

 be about six miles further. Now, the question 

 is, will your new-fangled vehicle come nearest 

 to horseback riding or the buggy? I rather 

 think the latter; therefore I would advise you 

 to go around by Hermitage. You will find 

 many pretty fair stretches of road, where you 

 can make the six miles extra in a very little 

 time." 



By the way, what nice people these country 

 •doctors are I They probably get pay for a good 

 •deal of the advice given, as well as for their 

 physic; but do they not, as a rule, do a vast deal 

 of good in any community without pay or any 

 thought of it? May God speed and strength- 

 en the family physican — especially those in 

 country places! and may he give them wisdom 

 and discretion in putting in less physic and 

 more advice to the little flocks that are depend- 

 ing upon him I 



One wonders why a town, especially a coun- 

 ty-seat, should have the queer name of Hermit- 

 age. Did some hermit make this spot his 

 abode in earlier days? or was it named in hon- 

 or of Andrew Jackson ("Old Hickory"), 

 whose old home in Tennessee was called the 

 Hermitage ? Well, it is a rather pretty county- 

 seat after all. though the place is small. I 

 came into the village from the west; but be- 

 fore I could reach the public square I was 

 obliged to follow a bad stony road clear around 

 to the north, until, in fact, I turned clear 

 around and went a little way westward to 

 get into the town that had been in sight for 

 some time. I afterward found that a very 

 steep cliff and a river at the base made this 

 circumlocution necessary. In this part of Mis- 

 souri they have no bridges. In fact, I have 

 been told that there is not a bridge in Laclede 

 Co. I think there can not be many, if any at 

 all, in Hickory Co. I found the people very 

 courteous at Hermitage; and one of the boys 

 told me there was one wheel in the town, but 

 nobody had yet learned to ride it. 



I reached Hermitage a little before sundown 

 ■on Friday night; but as my next day was to be 

 the hardest one of the whole trip, I decided to 

 push on as far as I could before darkness stop- 

 ped me. They told me I would have to ford a 

 river just outside of the town; but a crowd of 

 small boys volunteered to escort me past the 

 river. In the deepening shades of night the 

 dark waters looked treacherous; but I picked 

 out the longest-legged boy in the crowd, and 

 gave him a nickel to wade through before me. 

 By standing on tiptoe, with the wheel across 

 my shoulders. I managed to keep my panta- 

 loons from getting wet after I had rolled them 

 up to the very highest notch. I rather think 

 my wheel-riding has developed my muscles to a 

 little more than their usual size, and that was 

 why I could not get my trousers rolled up any 

 higher. After a little talk with the boys I bade 

 adieu with God's blessing, and put in my best 

 licks toward shortening the fifty or sixty miles 

 between myself and Lebanon. 



A great deal of my route was now through 

 the wilderness. A good deal of the time the 

 narrow cowpath roads were so full of fallen 

 leaves that I had to guess at my path more or 

 less. The crushing of thedrv leaves under the 



rubber tires, and the tinkling of the cowbells, 

 made me feel glad, even though few people or 

 houses either met my view. .lust as I came in- 

 to the little town of I'iad I was surprised to 

 hear boyish voices and roars of merriment. In 

 a field near by they had gathered to play base- 

 ball. Some one saw me first, and uttered an 

 exclamation. The boys stopped their game, 

 and began to give deafening cheers for the new 

 method of locomotion that came upon them « 



like an apparition. I joined in the laugh, and 

 returned their *' howd'yes" as I passed by; but 

 before I was out of sight it began to seem to me 

 that their yells were not all of them in a friend- 

 ly strain. The town of I'iad is composed of 

 three buildings— a general store, a dwelling- 

 house, and some sort of warehouse. There may 

 have been more buildings, but I do not remem- 

 ber them now. As soon as I alighted from my 

 wheel a crowd gathered around it as usual, for 

 the baseball players had caught up with me by 

 this time. I arranged for taking a brief nap, and 

 went out to bring in my wheel. But new 

 comers were constantly arriving as the news 

 spread, and it seemed a little hard to take it 

 away from the crowd. The storekeeper said 

 he guessed it would be perfectly safe if left out 

 there; but when I had finished my nap, per- 

 haps twenty minutes later, I was surprised to 

 see it not only standing alone, but there was not 

 a man, woman, nor child visible. I concluded 

 they had probably gone back to their ball 

 game; but I felt a little misgiving as I mount- 

 ed. I felt of the tires. They seemed all right; 

 but before I was out of sight of the store I 

 knew mischief had been done. The bystanders 

 were likely hidden somewhere, and they could 

 see me, but I could not see them, and they were 

 watching to see me go down. I decided, how- 

 ever, to disappoint them if I could. One of the 

 tires got softer and softer, but I managed to 

 get down the road into the brush; then I took 

 my wheel out into the bushes away from the 

 path and changed the tires. When I reached 

 Lebanon I found seven pinholes to be cement- 

 ed up. I do not suppose these people knew it 

 was a $.50 fine for puncturing a tire. Perhaps 

 some urchin was curious to see whether it real- 

 ly was " wind " that kept them inflated. I de- 

 cided once not to mention this one piece of 

 discourtesy I met during my whole trip; but 

 afterward I thought it might be a valuable 

 caution about leaving wheels for any length of 

 time among a crowd of boys. I afterward 

 learned that there was a rather hard set around 

 this little four corners away back in the wilder- 

 ness of Dallas Co. 



And they straig-litway left their nets, and followed 

 lilm.— Matt. ■t:20. 



And they immediately left tlie ship iiiid their 

 fatlier, and followed him.— Matt. 4:22. 



Ever since that automatic little greenhouse 

 across the street from where I write was made, 

 I have contemplated replacing the loose 

 sashes, which covered it, with permanent raf- 

 ters and glass. You see. by this means we get 

 much more light; and loose sash are only a 

 temporary affair after all. A big wind blew 

 ofT a lot of them last winter, and it cost me 

 several dollars to get them back. My trip to 

 Missouri, however, delayed the work, and I 

 gave it up. But the more I looked at that 

 little greenhouse, where every thing grew 



