490 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



J UNE 



M cage containing a clipped (pieen I used to try 

 to shove the handle down in the ground ; but 

 the ground was always too hard, and so I 

 had to stand and hold the rake. If I could 

 have had a buggy-wheel, I could have rolled 

 it diiectly beneath where the bees were fly- 

 ing thickest, and stuck the rake into the 

 hub. Every thing would have gone on love- 

 ly, and I, at a convenient distance, could 

 have watched proceedings. Perhaps I should 

 have worn a complacent smile on my coun- 

 tenance, as Rambler told us about in our 

 last issue. Now, friend Violet, for giving 

 us this suggestion you may select any thing 

 from the dollar counter which you may 

 choose from our price list, and we will send 

 it to you free of charge ; or, if you prefer, 

 we will send you a dollar's worth" of counter 

 goods. Come, now, little folks ; we want 

 yon to tell how you hive bees. 



SIT OK SET. 



HOW EVEN LITTLE FOLKS MAY KNOW WHEN TO 

 USE THESE WORDS CORRECTLY. 



HO "does" the giaramar for Gleanings? 

 I do not suppose that Mr. Root, with all 

 the thousand things that he has to do, pays 

 any attention to it. Ernest has been to 

 coiiejie, and, of course, knows what is 

 right, but perhaps he is too busy to sec to if. and 

 then it comes on the proof-reader, I suppose. Now, 

 there has never been any thing very bad in Glean- 

 ings' grammar, but I guess we might as well have 

 it just right if wc know how; and to help have it 

 right, ] want to recommend a little book called 

 "Powell's How to Talk," that is very useful and 

 suggestive. It says, that when a man gits in a 

 chair, he sits; but if we piacc a pitcher on a table 

 we Ncf it there. Tt seems to me that this is a dis- 

 tinction easily remembered. If the verb is used in 

 the sense of resting, it is sit; when used in place of 

 put, it is set. Well, then, if I put a hen on a nest 

 full of eggs in order that she may hatch them, I set 

 her; i. e., I place her on the nest; but the hen, 

 when so placed, sit*-; she i»asittiinj hen; but the 

 eggs that she sits on arc a settinii, are they nofi? 

 They are placed there and can not get up and go 

 away until they hatch out. I believe, however, 

 that hens are not mentioned in " Powell's How to 

 Talk." He says, that if a thing goes up of itself, as 

 the wind, smoke, etc., it I'ises; if a house or a stone 

 is lifted up, it is raised. Most of the explanations 

 given are short, and easy to understand. I think 

 that every mother of a family ought to have one, 

 and enforce its teachings. It is hardly worth while 

 for children to study grammar at school, if we take 

 no pains to have them use it. In most of the 

 schools in Illinois, "Powell's How to Talk" is used 

 for children just learning to read, and it seems to 

 me that it must have a good influence on the com- 

 ing men and women. 



Now, I suppose a hundred readers of Gleai^jings 

 are getting ready to say, "Why, Mrs. Chaddock, 

 you do not use such good grammar yourself, that 

 you should set yourself up to criticise other folks." 

 But I am going to forestall all that you can say, by 

 owning up to all my sins in that direction. Gram- 

 mar is an unintelligible mix-up to me, without 

 sense or reason. I do not blame children for not 

 comprehending it. I never could. There's too 



much of it, and it is too complicated. I know a 

 good many rules that 1 have learned in different 

 grammars; but most of those rules have a dozen 

 exceptions, and how am 1 to know whether 1 am to 

 go by the rule or by the exception? Last summer I 

 gathered up all the grammars about the house and 

 studied them. I had six different kinds, but I can 

 not understand it. I want to, and I try to put my 

 mind into a receptive condition; l)ut it gets all 

 jumbled up. But there are a few things that I can 

 understand and put in practice. I can keep from 

 saying " ain't " and "hain't," and such glaring er- 

 rors as these; but some of the modes are too much 

 for me, and this is the reason that 1 want the folks 

 who print Gleanings to look sharp, so that they 

 will not let any of my grammatical errors creep in. 

 I was brought up on Brown's Grammar. It was the 

 kind used in the " Friend " school. It was a " thee " 

 and " thou " grammar, but we did not go by it when 

 talking. Instead of saying "How art thou?" when 

 we met a friend, we said, " How is thee?" When 

 some traveling preachers came around and said 

 " thou " to us, we all took it up and said it to each 

 other for a week or two, then went back to "is thee" 

 as of old. 



The other day a young woman (who is going to be 

 a school-teacher) was riding to town with us. She 

 talked all the time, and said "ain't" continually. I 

 told her that if she would not say it any more till 

 we reached town (we had a mile to go), I would 

 give her five cents' worth of candy. She agreed, 

 but said she felt sorry for me. She went on talking, 

 and before a minute had passed she said ai)i't again. 

 I told her of it, and she wanted me to try her again. 

 T did so, and again she failed. I gave her five tri- 

 als, and she failed every time. Then she gave it 

 up in despair. M.^hala B. Chaddock. 



Vermont, 111., April, 1888. 



Accept our thanks, Mrs. Chaddock, for 

 your very plain and instructive talk on the 

 correct use of these two little verbs which 

 are so often used interchangeably. It is 

 just one little letter that makes all the dif- 

 ference between the correct and incorrect 

 use of " set '' and " sit ;" I hope, therefore, 

 all the boys and girls wlio read this will take 

 pains to bear it in mind in future. If you 

 learn to speak correctly when you are yoiing, 

 you will find it easy to continue to do so 

 throughout yonrlife; and if you get into 

 ways of careless speaking, it will be quite a 

 hard matter to break the old habit. It is 

 just as easy to learn a good habit as a bad 

 one. As to the proof-reader, we will let him 

 speak for himself, which lie does in thiswise: 



It is a matter of daily occurrence to mark 

 '' sit '' for " set,'' and sometimes '' set " for 

 " sit,"' in the copy intended for Gleanings, 

 and any interchange of the two words is 

 simply a typographical error. The general 

 tendency is to use the word "set" in a 

 proper way, and also to the entire exclusion 

 of " sit.'' A child might say, " I set the old 

 hen on her nest, and then 1 sat down and 

 watched her ;■' but he will never say that 

 he sat the hen on the nest. It is a very 

 common error, by the way. to sav. " I set 

 there yesterday." instead of saying " sat 

 there." How many there are who say, "• I 

 guess I will lay down awhile and rest," and 

 yet they forget to tell us what they propose 

 to lay down! They mean they will lie down, 



