1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



891 



cushion for me. I like my own chair. Now, 

 when somebody puts one of the new-fangled 

 -chairs at my place at the table when I am 

 tired and hungry and in a hurry, I feel like 

 taking the thing and throwing it into the 

 back yard. I have never done it, however ; 

 for after I get seated in my favorite chair 

 the next thing is to ask God's blessing on our 

 home, and that would not hitch on very con- 

 veniently as a supplement to the act of pitch- 

 ing the chair into the alley, nor even express- 

 ing my vexation in unchristianlike remarks. 

 The only thing I can do is to remove the 

 offensive chair and hunt up my own. Some- 

 times I groan (mentally) as I do it; but when 

 I get into my own seat in the sort of chair 

 that always rests me (sometimes I think even 

 the sight of it does), then I am all right. 

 Now, I have my notions about chairs. None 

 of the rest of the family agree with me, but of 

 course they permit me to have my preference, 

 and nineteen times out of twenty the chair I 

 love is placed right before my plate. 



Friend Dolson has his notions in regard to 

 rabbets. His reasons may be good ones or 

 they may not be. It is none of our business 

 whether they are or not, for that matter. He 

 has paid his money, and he is entitled to what 

 Tie pays for. Still more, as I take it, our boys 

 advertise the new style as something greatly 

 superior to the old; and after they had recom- 

 mended it, and urged people to order that 

 kind, it would be most preposterous, not to 

 say unkind, to intimate that our friend could 

 not have what he wanted and paid for. 



When I got hold of the matter, some of the 

 clerks suggested that no complaint was made 

 until several months after the goods were 

 received, and that our stationery declares all 

 complaints must be made inside of ten days. 

 Now, this very thing illustrates the folly of 

 trying to lay down cast-iron rules. The rea- 

 son why friend Dolson waited so long was 

 b)ecause, out of the kindness of his heart, he 

 thought he might use or get rid of the old- 

 style rabbets. He waited because he wanted 

 to do us a favor, and it would be most unkind 

 and ungrateful, as I take it, to even suggest 

 iolding him down to the ten-days rule that 

 might justly apply in cases that generally 

 come up. 



Well, friends, I suppose you will all agree 

 with me that the matter is bad as it is ; but 

 further inquiry developed the fact that our 

 customer wrote a very kind letter of remon- 

 strance last May. That letter was turned 

 over to Mr. Calvert, our general manager, to 

 answer. And now comes the most humiliat- 

 ing part of it. During the past season Mr. 

 Calvert was overloaded with business — so 

 much so that I sometimes thought he would 

 go crazy if it had been anybody but John, 

 with his great rugged Canadian constitution. 

 John was obliged to admit that the letter of 

 complaint received in May had been put away 

 with a lot of papers, and actually remained 

 unanswered until along in November. When 

 I got hold of the letters the grass did not grow 

 under my feet, I assure you, until I had sent 

 a letter off saying I was ashamed to confess 

 that The A. I. Root Co. had ever been guilty 



of any such omission and neglect. I told him 

 I would send him 1000 new rabbets by first 

 train ; and if he could not sell the old ones 

 for enough to pay the freight on the new ones 

 we would pay the freight also. Now, here is 

 a clause in the letter of May 22d that gives 

 me more pain than all the rest of it : 



The A. I. Root Co.: — I took every means possible to 

 make the matter clear, because I had been warned by 

 Albert Broomell, a bee-keeper, not to send you such a 

 large order, as you would be sure to send the wrong 

 thing as you did them. Now, as these were regular 

 goods advertised in your price list, with cut, and as I 

 made the matter plain, as my copy-book shows (letter 

 of March .5, 181)7), I fail to .see any good reason why 

 such a mistake should be made; therefore I think you 

 should suffer the loss. I was compelled to use 400 of 

 them at once, and afterward sold 50; the rest I have 

 on hand. I .sent in the order for the new style becau.se 

 I liked the idea so well, as I get more room around 

 the end bar. and regret greatly that I was compelled 

 to use the 400. Furthermore, I had to pay nearly S3. 00 

 freight on these goods. The freight on the whole or- 

 der was over $12.00. Now, I consider it proper that 

 you take the 550, which I still hold, and ship nie .550 of 

 the new style, as ordered, with freight paid, or return 

 cash, and reimburse me for freight paid, and do with 

 the goods I have here as you please. I have held the 

 goods over a year, thinking I might dispose of them in 

 some way. Yours respectfully, H. F. Dolson. 



Phoenix, Arizona, May 22, 1898. 



The part that gives me pain is to the effect 

 that another customer of ours in Phoenix — 

 one that I know and highly esteem — intimates 

 he has been treated in the same manner; and 

 then, to cap all, this plaintive letter which, it 

 seems to me, ought to touch the heart of any 

 one, received no answer whatever, but was 

 kept waiting with a lot of other letters. Now, 

 I am somewhat vehement, I know; but I think 

 vehemence is a grand good thing under some 

 circumstances. I do not wish to boast, dear 

 brothers and sisters, but I think I tell you the 

 truth when I say that, during all of my busi- 

 ness life, when a fair kind letter like the above 

 came to hand showing how some customer 

 had suffered because of our blundering or 

 negligence, I have made it a point to rush off 

 some kind of answer, without waiting a min- 

 ute. If no stenographer was in the office, or 

 if it was after office hours, when I got hold of 

 the letter I would get a postal and address it 

 with my pencil, and then I would say, " Bro. 



, you have been shamefully treated. I 



give you my word of honor that every thing 

 shall be made straight and right. I will ex- 

 amine into the matter, and write you more 

 fully next mail." Then before the next mail 

 went out I took pains to hunt up all the cor- 

 respondence bearing on the case, read what 

 letters had been sent, and finally paying our 

 long-suffering friends not only all they claim- 

 ed as justly due, but something further, to 

 heal up their wounded feelings. A great 

 many times such parties would not take this 

 "something further," but in that case I could 

 feel I had done my duty. 



Please do not understand by the above that 

 our boys, my sons and sons-in-law, are not as 

 much disposed to be fair and liberal in busi- 

 ness as I am. I am sure they are, each and 

 all, hungering and thirsting after righteous- 

 ness, and I understand righteousness to mean 

 right doing, no matter what else it means. 

 Sometimes John and Ernest both have settled 

 difficulties in a way that I thought was abso- 



