1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



549 



she wakes up. She is always quiet, happy, 

 and smiling, just as you see her now." It 

 really touched my heart to look at the little 

 one. She almost seemed to realize that she 

 was to a certain extent to care for her own lit- 

 tle self, a motherless baby. The very thought 

 seems to appeal to the best instincts of hu- 

 manity. Who is there who would not share 

 his last crust with such a one? 



Friend Boardman was not getting any hon- 

 ey the morning I left, or none to speak of ; 

 but he has two or more strings to his bow, and 

 so he has recently introduced some very pret- 

 ty and efficient poultry-houses. Every thing 

 is as clean and neat about the poultry as it is 

 about the bee-hives ; and if the bees are not 

 bringing in honey the poultry are bringing in 

 eggs. In my boyhood days poultry-keeping 

 commended itself to me inasmuch as you do 

 not have to wait very long for some income 

 from your investment. If managed properly 

 the poultry should produce something to sell, 

 not only every day in the year, but the very 

 first day the plant is started. With the aid of 

 the poultry-droppings friend B. has a piece of 

 ground of rare fertility, and he had a crop of 

 Giant Gibraltar onions that promised great 

 things. 



I had been told there is a beautiful cinder 

 path for wheelmen, between Norwalk and 

 Bellevue. I got on this wheel-path in the 

 cool of the morning. It is, perhaps, Irom two 

 to three feet wide. The surface is hard and 

 smooth, but there are just enough very fine 

 cinders to make a little bit of rustle as the 

 wheel flies over them. A great part of this 

 path is under beautiful shade-trees, trimmed 

 just high enough so as not to hit one's head ; 

 then pretty dooryards in front of tidy homes 

 conic right up to the wheel-path. In the sub- 

 urbs of the towns, beautiful lawns and flowers 

 make every thing look lovely. A little out of 

 Norwalk the path goes down on a curve open- 

 ing up a glimpse of a beautiful river, and then 

 speeds up and down, along the river-bank. 

 The cinder path is so hard and firm and safe 

 that you can go down one hill at lightning 

 speed, and. your wheel courses around grace- 

 ful curves, down one hill and up the other. 

 My first real thrill of happiness came when I 

 passed a pretty home with a great luxuriant 

 clematis partly covering the porch. There were 

 hundreds of blossoms spreading their petals 

 like butterfly wings, up to the morning sun ; 

 and then the tint — a brilliant purplish blue — 

 that seemed to be almost too beautiful to be a 

 thing of this world. I have told you before 

 that I am partially color-blind ; that is, I can 

 not see red fruit amid green leaves a certain 

 distance off, as other people do ; but thank 

 God I am not blind to the beautiful tints of 

 the floral world. I have all my life admired 

 a certain shade of clematis blossoms ; but the 

 one I saw that morning was really startling in 

 its glorious beauty. I tried to think of words 

 that would express what I beheld. Entranc- 

 ing loveliness comes the nearest to it of any 

 thing I could think of. Once before in Ber- 

 muda, when a glimpse of the immense mass of 

 bougainevillea, almost covering a residence, 

 broke on my view, I experienced something 



like what I felt when I saw this clematis. It 

 really seemed as if the plant nodded and smil- 

 ed as it noticed my thrill of pleasure. I do 

 not like the word "intoxication," but I might 

 say that, for a minute, it seemed as if I was 

 intoxicated with its beauty. Thank God, 

 there is nothing wrong in this kind of intoxi- 

 cation. Then another thought came to me : 

 That clematis and that home are not mine ; 

 but I am enjoying them just as much as if 

 they were. It is God's gift to humanity, in 

 response to careful painstaking and toil. The 

 owner, if he should see this, would not feel a 

 bit hurt to think I shared this pleasure with 

 him, even though it cost me nothing. I re- 

 member hearing about some one whom people 

 called crazy because he said he owned every 

 thing. He explained this by remarking that 

 all things belong to God, and what was God's 

 was his, and that, although these beautiful 

 things in this world were not especially his 

 property, or the result of his toil, yet he en- 

 joyed them fully as much as the real owner — 

 perhaps far more than many of the millionaire 

 owners. This thought came home to me. 



A little further along some humanitarian 

 had planted cherry-trees along the road. 

 These were bending with loads of fruit. I 

 saw that other travelers had been helping 

 themselves, and so I helped myself, and 

 thanked God for the luscious fruit. After I 

 had eaten as many as anybody ought to eat, I 

 noticed over the fence the most beautiful tree 

 of cherries I ever saw in my life. They were 

 of a peculiar mottled red, or purple, that 

 struck me as being the most fascinating color 

 for fruit I had ever seen. No colored plate in 

 any nurseryman's catalog ever produced any 

 thing so beautiful as this tree loaded with 

 gorgeous bright fruit. It thrilled me very 

 much as did the clematis. There was, of 

 course, a longing to taste and see whether it 

 was really equal to what imagination pictured. 

 The owner's house was quite a little piece 

 away, and there did not seem to be anybody 

 at home or I would have gone and begged the 

 privilege of purchasing a few of those luscious 

 cherries. And something said, "Old fellow, 

 you have had cherries enough for one time, 

 certainly. Now teach yourself to enjoy look- 

 ing at these, and admiring them without tast- 

 ing, when you do not need them." 



I had a long ride before me, and it was time 

 to go on. I looked at the cherries, and again 

 felt a longing to taste them ; and then I decid- 

 ed to try to learn in my old age to enjoy things 

 without touching them or appropriating them, 

 just as much (or perhaps more) because I ex- 

 ercised a little self-sacrifice. And then I look- 

 ed at that beautiful tree with its loads of fruit 

 gracefully bending in the morning breeze, and 

 felt another thrill, and I rather think one of a 

 higher type, in rejoicing to see what others 

 had to make them happy. 



Now, dear reader, do not think me foolish 

 or sentimental when I tell you of another 

 thrill of joy and happiness that came to me 

 that morning. I was undecided about my 

 way. No one seemed to be near of whom I 

 might inquire, until I passed a pretty young 

 lady, probably a teacher going to her school. 



