1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



61 



pretty well. Our radiators and water-pipes 

 had been put in piecemeal during several 

 years past. An experienced plumber told me 

 they were not put in according to rule, which 

 I knew already. He said the pipes would 

 have to be all taken out and the thing recon- 

 structed; but I could not do so in the dead of 

 winter, as part of them were inside of chim- 

 neys, and Mrs. Root could not think of hav- 

 ing her house all torn up — surely not in mid- 

 winter — for any more fussing for my pipes. 



While considering this matter, just before 

 taking my nap one day, I knelt down right 

 near the complicated system of pipes — pipes 

 that had been put in by my own hands, and 

 that I loved almost as if the rusty iron things 

 had life and sense. I knelt down and prayed 

 that I might have wisdom and understanding 

 to make the water-pipes work, even as the 

 steam-pipes were working, without expensive 

 reconstruction. Dear friends, I oftentimes 

 hesitate about telling you these things ; and 

 some good people chide me for so doing ; but 

 yet I know from your letters that many, like 

 myself, have learned to find peace, happiness, 

 and success by putting their trust in God ; * 

 and if my Home Talks shall help you to have 

 faith in promises like the two or three I have 

 chosen to-day at the head of this, article, then 

 I am certainly on safe ground. 



I can not remember exactly now, but I think 

 that, when I awoke from my nap after that 

 little prayer, the pipes were hot. They kept 

 getting hotter all day. Mrs. Root exclaimed 

 with surprise that the parlor radiator, which 

 had never before been really hot, was now 

 giving off heat at a surprising rate ; and some 

 indirect radiators that had been put in for live 

 steam years ago were also hot ; and finally all 

 the radiators in the house — eight in number — 

 were as hot as if heated by the furnace ; and, 

 last of all, the furnace itself, with its large 

 hot-water boiler, was so hot that it seemed as 

 if there must be a fire inside when there was 

 not a spark. t We let the fire in the furnace 



* Even while I write this footnote the following ex- 

 ceedingly kind letter is brought to my notice : 



Bro. Root :— Although T am nearly as old in life as you are, 

 I can not help looking on vou as a father. I owe much of my 

 success in life to you anil Gleanings. 1 am not rich, it is true. 

 I have 170 acres of land worth $60 per acre, and have from 

 $3000 to $4000 worth of personal property, and owe no man a 

 dollar, and I attribute nearly all of it to one hive of bees and 

 a copy of Gleanings obtained about 16 years ago— not that I 

 made much out of bees, but somehow they and Gleanings in- 

 stilled into me economy and a new life that I had never 

 known before, and thereby pros) ered; and to vou 1 give most 

 of the credit M. F. Tatman. 



Rossville, Kan. 



t During this busy life of mine I have had many dis- 

 appointments. I presume I am naturally too san- 

 guine, and so these disappointments and unexpected 

 obstacles probably do me good — they ought to. Well, 

 when any thing goes away beyond my expectations, I 

 confess it is a "happy surprise: " and most of my hap- 

 py surprises in this line come after I have prayed very 

 earnestly and repeatedly over some particular thing. 

 The old indirect radiators I have alluded to were orig- 

 inally used for live steam. I never expected the hot 

 water to heat them. The feed-pipes were too small. 

 They had never been removed from the place where 

 built in chimneys in the basement because it would 

 tear things up so to get them out. Well, this is not 

 the first time, by any means when my petitions have 

 been granted away beyond what I had ever hoped for 

 or dreamed of ; and it is even now a matter of aston- 

 ishment to me to see that small iron pipe coming out 

 of the cellar floor, from the ground outside, and send- 

 ing such an amount of heat all over the house, up 

 stairs and down. 



■go out, and saved our coal. In fact, we have 

 not burned a bit of coal since — not even in 

 zero weather — except on Sunday. You see, 

 running the steam in an iron pipe so great a 

 part of the distance does not give the " stor- 

 age battery " result to the same extent it did 

 with my former drain-tiles. For heating hot- 

 beds with exhaust steam we still use tiles ; but 

 I think that, if I were going to do it over 

 again, I would use sewer pipe with bells or 

 flanges where they unite together. Where a 

 great amount of exhaust steam is to be taken 

 through the ground, iron pipes are best and 

 safest, for the great heat, with so much damp- 

 ness, is quite liable to break tiles. 



This matter of utilizing exhaust steam from 

 factories or places where a steam-engine is 

 used for any purpose is getting to be an im- 

 portant matter. Where the steam is allowed 

 to spout out into the open air, and go to waste, 

 an enormous amount of heat is dissipated and 

 lost — more than almost anybody has any idea 

 of. All the radiators I have mentioned are 

 warmed by \%-\\\c\\ pipe exposed to a jet of 

 exhaust steam for less than 100 feet ; and the 

 system of piping, as I have remarked, is very 

 awkward, and not at all according to plumb- 

 ing-rules. In fact, it is a surprise and a mys- 

 tery that it should work at all, and give such 

 results as we are now getting. 



You may readily imagine that, after all this 

 toil and anxious solicitude, I now feel happy 

 every time when I go into my home, and 

 stretch out my hands before the hot radi- 

 ators; and when I thus stretch them out you 

 may be sure I do not forget the great Father 

 above who has said in his holy word, "De- 

 light thyself also in the Lord, and he shall 

 give thee the desires of thy heart." Dear 

 brothers and sisters, perhaps you wonder that 

 I found a text to express so completely my 

 feelings as the above; and you may be surpris- 

 ed again when I tell you that my eye alighted 

 on that verse by chance, as it were, right while 

 I was dictating this Home Paper. The little 

 Bible lay oj en before me where it seems to 

 have opened of itself, to the 37th Psilm ; and 

 my eye caught the fourth verse without seeing 

 any thing else on the page. It was directed, 

 perhaps, by two pencil-marks; and as the book 

 belongs to my good friend W. P. Root, who 

 is taking down these notes, I shall have to 

 suppose that the pencil-marks are of his own 

 making. 



This promise is all the more precious to me 

 because of the word " desires." This thing I 

 had been working on and praying over was 

 one of the "desires" of my heart; and some- 

 times I felt a little uneasy, because I did not 

 fetl exactly sure that it was right for me to 

 enjoy myself in working out problems of this 

 kind. I felt, of course, that it was an inno- 

 cent pleasure or recreation — certainly as harm- 

 less as to spend my time in what is called 

 " questionable amusements," and far better. 

 Some of the happiest hours God has ever giv- 

 en me were spent in exploring the realms of 

 science, such as heat, electricity, hot-water 

 circulation, etc.; and how beautifully this text 

 comes in ! " Delight thyself also in the Lord;" 

 that is, make him your confidant, your pait- 



