494 



GLEAKtNGS IN BEE CULTUllE. 



Juke 



a frame for cabbages, or 50 cts. a frame for 

 celery. Before you adopt these figures it 

 may be well to tell you that we have decided 

 — that is, the greenhouse manager and mj'- 

 self— that 8 cts. a hundred is about a fail- 

 price to pay the boys and girls for trans- 

 planting. 



Well, how shall one get this extra vim and 

 interest in his work, who is working for 

 himself, and is not hired by the piece or 

 hour? My friend, how does your wife get 

 that extra vim and energy with which she 

 works on wash-days, or in the morning to 

 get breakfast on time? when there are two 

 or three little chicks in the household to be 

 dressed and fed and kissed and got to sleep, 

 how does she do it all, and make all of her 

 other duties come to time? Well, I think 

 you can tell best by taking a look at her. 

 Watch and see how she economizes, by do- 

 ing something with one hand while she does 

 something else with the other hand. See 

 her rock the baby with her foot, while her 

 hands fairly fly among the culinary imple- 

 ments, singing with her voice meanwhile, 

 perhaps, to hush the baby. Does she enjoy 

 her work too? Why, I think she does, espe- 

 cially if her heart is full of love and praise 

 to the Master. One great element in her 

 happiness is the consciousness of having a 

 husband who is using liis brain and muscle 

 in the same way to make every thing count 

 for her and these same little ones. Dear 

 reader, are ymi tliat husband? Perhaps you 

 say you don't like to be crowded all the 

 while on high-pressure principles. Well, 

 may be you think you don't ; but my opin- 

 ion is, that more happiness is found among 

 the real busy people than among those who 

 have not very much to do. 



My good father once took a notion into 

 his head that he was getting to be too old to 

 work on a farm. He moved iulo town and 

 stayed there two years in order to take 

 things easy, and enjoy life. 8o far as he 

 was concerned, it was a tremendous failure. 

 He worried and fretted, and became more 

 unhappy than he ever was before in his life, 

 and got back to his usual piece of mind only 

 by going back to the old farm and staying 

 there all the rest of his days. Work Avhile 

 you work, and play while you play. I do 

 not know of any better preventive for get- 

 ting sick than to be so full of business that 

 you have not time to be sick. Suppose you 

 are conscious of a lack of interest in your 

 work. Suppose you have got to feeling that 

 it is a kind of drudgery, and that you hate 

 the sight of it. What shall you do? Well, 



in the first place, apply your mind to it and 

 busy your brain in plans for shortening and 

 improving and excelling in your allotted 

 task that seems like drudgery, and then get 

 right down to it and push ; that is, work as 

 if your life depended on it, even if there 

 does not seem to be any great reason for 

 pushing things along. If you try hard you 

 can see the dimes ahead of you, just as the 

 boys did ; and if you put in with that kind 

 of energy and enthusiasm, the dimes will 

 surely come. I have had hands in my em- 

 ploy who did not seem to be conscious they 

 were in any way at fault, when they wouldn't 

 earn over two or three cents an hour, at a 

 fair valuation, on the amount of work they 

 were accomplishing. Wlien spoken to about 

 it they felt hurt, and insisted they were do- 

 ing good fair day's work. Oftentimes noth- 

 ing would convince them of the error of 

 their ways ; or, to put it more plainly, noth- 

 ing would convince them that the dawdling 

 manner in which they were working was 

 only next door to stealing, until they were 

 started on piece work. Let some good hand 

 sit down beside them and show them how 

 much could be accomplished in an hour, 

 then tell them they must give up their places 

 or work by the piece, and in a little time 

 they will be astonished to find it an easy 

 matter for them to do as much in one hour 

 as they have heretofore done in four hours. 

 Now, this state of affairs is not so very un- 

 common. There are carpenters and farm 

 laborers and mechanics of different kinds 

 around, hunting for jobs, who, when set at 

 work, do not accomplish as much in four 

 days as good workmen will do in one day. 

 It has always been a puzzle to me to know 

 how^ manufacturers, knowing these things, 

 could pay men one uniform price for a day's 

 work ; and how about reconciling these 

 things with the demands of the strikers? 

 Nows then, if you Avant to have something 

 to do, you must be alive and awake ; and if 

 you want to be happy in doing that which 

 you find to do, you must alse be alive and 

 (twake. 



Eight hours has been talked about as a 

 day's work a good deal of late ; and, in fact, 

 I believe eight hours has been made a day's 

 work by the law^s of the State of Ohio ; that 

 is, if you employ a man at so much a day, 

 and neither he nor you mention the number 

 of hours he has to work, he can collect his 

 pay by working eight hours only. I am 

 ready to grant that eight hoiu's of live earn- 

 est work is worth fully as much as ten hours 

 of work where there is no life or interest in 



