1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



655 



OUR 



HOMES, 



BY A. I. R OOT. 



L,et us make man in our image, in our likeness. — 

 Gen. 1 : 26. 



In the Declaration of Independence of the 

 United States there is a clause that has often 

 impressed me. It says, "All men are endow- 

 ed by their Creator with certain unalienable 

 rights : among these are life, liberty, and the 

 pursuit of happiness." The great Father cer- 

 tainly had in view that man should take a very 

 high position in the universe. He planned 

 that he should not only do a great work of 

 so Tie sort, but I think he also intended that he 

 should enjoy himself and be happy ; and the 

 framers of the Declaration also seem to have 

 had a very high conception as to what man- 

 kind should be, or, if you choose, as to what 

 the people of the United States should be. 

 Not only are they to do a great and good 

 work, but it is to be their privilege to seek 

 happiness — to have " fun," as the boys would 

 express it, and enjoy themselves. There are 

 some of us whose lives are so busy that we 

 hardly dare think of stopping to play and have 

 fun. There are certain overworked women — 

 may God help them when their eyes scan 

 these pages — yes, may God help them to find 

 just a little time once or twice in a year, if not 

 oftener, to take a holiday, and possibly to go 

 on a picnic excursion. It is right, and I am 

 sure God intended we should have some play, 

 every one of us, even the gray-haired men and 

 women as well as the juveniles and the boys 

 and the girls. A great many times I feel as if 

 I had no sort of business to take a holiday at 

 all, nor even to stop and have fun, as there are 

 so many things that ought to be doing, and 

 others that ought to be dofie every day in the 

 year. 



I have just been making some rather severe 

 criticisms on Sunday excursions, and some of 

 you may have received the idea that I am down 

 on excursions of all sorts. God forbid ! I well 

 remember the time when the talk of a .Sun- 

 day-school picnic almost set me wild. Yes, I 

 can remember, too, when the thought of the 

 Fourth of July prompted me to swing my rag- 

 ged straw hat, and almost make myself hoarse 

 shouting "Hurrah, boys!" And I have not 

 got over it yet ; in fact, I sometimes think 

 that, after one gets to be about sixty years old, 

 he should be a boy again, for at least a con- 

 siderable part of the time. Yes, I believe in 

 excursions. Of course, there may be too many 

 of them, and I have sometimes thought our 

 people were just now having more excursions 

 than they really need. The}' cost quite a lit- 

 tle money ; and if we do not have them on 

 Sunday there is a loss of time that every one 

 can not well afford. I have recently attended 

 two excursions. A year ago the employees of 

 our factory and the business men of Medina 

 united in having an excursion together ; but 

 somehow or other Satan got his finger into the 

 picnic, or rather, perhaps, before and after the 

 picnic, and there was some unpleasantness ; 



so this year they decided to have two picnics, 

 with only a short interval between them. One 

 of them was at a place where I should not have 

 chosen to go ; but;a great many times in these 

 lives of ours I think it wiser to join in with 

 the crowd, and go along with the crowd, than 

 to hurt people's feelings by making a fuss 

 about things that are not exactly as one would 

 have them. You know what I mean, friends ; 

 and I wish you to please keep in mind what I 

 mean, in what I am going to say about this 

 excursion to a modern fashionable picnic- 

 ground. One of the finest attractions the 

 place afforded was a beautiful bathing-ground 

 on the shores of Lake Erie. The locality was 

 all clean white sand — so clean you could sit 

 down anywhere with your Sunday clothes on, 

 and the children could roll and tumble in the 

 soft warm sand without soiling their clean 

 clothes a particle. Then they could roll and 

 tumble in the water warmed by the August 

 sun, to their hearts' content ; and, in fact, a 

 great part of them did roll and tumble in the 

 beautiful clean water pretty much all day. In 

 fact, whole families — father and mother, and 

 all the boys and girls and juveniles, with 

 proper bathing-suits, were thoroughly washed, 

 and washed clean for at least once in their lives 

 if not more. 



I soon discovered that this same clean white 

 sand, right at the water's edge, was an ideal 

 place for running a wheel. My wheel was 

 with me, and I rode along the beach until I 

 was tired, and then had a delicious nap in a 

 heap of soft warm sand, my head pillowed on 

 my wheel. Then I got up and wheeled again, 

 and I went so far away that I could neither 

 hear the shouting of the bathers nor see their 

 forms in the distance. If I went too far away 

 from the water's edge the sand was too soft, 

 and my wheel would slip; while if I went too 

 close, the white caps would break over me 

 and make the wheel spatter my clothing. 

 But the water was so clean and pure it left no 

 trace. Oh how I did enjoy that wheelride, 

 with the strong breeze right from off across 

 the water giving me strength and inspiration ! 

 As I was away off alone I could utter praises 

 out loud, and give vent to the exuberance of 

 my spirits. I said, "O Ford, I thank thee 

 that thou hast given me a human life to live." 

 In repeating this afterward to my relatives 

 who were with me on the trip, one of them 

 remarked, "But, brother, are there not other 

 times when you feel as if life with its many 

 cares costs almost as much as it is worth ? " 



"Yes, dear sister, I am often tempted to 

 let such thoughts come into my mind, but I 

 always make haste to say, ' Get thee behind 

 me, Satan,' for I am sure these thoughts 

 come from him. It is one of his weapons. " 



A nephew whom I have spoken of asked 

 me if I had seen the sights. I told him I had 

 seen most of them. Then he inquired if I 

 had been in the great pavilion. I told him I 

 had been through the most of it, and admired 

 it, but I said there was a certain part of it I 

 did not feel inclined to visit. 



"O Uncle Amos ! you must visit that part 

 of it. You certainly should know of these 

 things you talk about. Now, I just want you 



