652 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 15. 



" Come here," said Deacon Strong ; and he 

 took the boy up in his arms and told him he 

 spelled right — the trouble was, the English 

 was wrong. 



" I can't have you talking such nonsense as 

 that to my children," said Miss Barton, the 

 teacher, rather crisply. 



"Why not?" said the deacon. 



" Why," said Miss Barton, "because that is 

 the way it is spelled, and that is the way our 

 fathers and grandfathers spelled it. Words 

 have a history, and we should lose their his- 

 tory if we didn't spell as our fathers did." 



"Suppose," said Tim Fasset, " we were to 

 keep bees just as our fathers did, without 

 making any change." 



" I guess the price of honey would be high- 

 er than it is now," said Charley Atkins. 



"What kind of a man is he?" inquired 

 Deacon Strong. 



" Oh ! " said the colonel, "he is all right. 

 He is a good business man and a temperance 

 man ; no one ever heard of his getting drunk. 

 He might prefer a good high-license law to 

 a prohibitory law ; but he is all right, and he 

 is a good church-member too." 



" I don't care whether he is a member of 

 the church or the sanhedrin, or a bishop ; if 

 he is willing to license that abomination I 

 won't support hir.i," said the deacon ; and his 

 face began to blnsh, and his eyes show fire. 



"But," said Col. Wickham, soothingly, 

 " you know prohibition doesn't prohibit, 

 and — " 



"It's a lie!" said the deacon. "Prohibi- 

 tion does prohibit, always prohibits. Doesn't 



"THAT'S WHAT I INTEND TO DO, BEAT THE DEUCE EVERY TIME." 



"I tell you," said Deacon Strong, "if I 

 could have my way I would have a few more 

 letters invented to represent every sound in 

 the English language, and I would then spell 

 it straight, and leave the history for the 'dic- 

 tionaries." 



How much more he would have said, 1 don't 

 know ; for just then Col. Wickham drove up 

 with his team that he was offered three hun- 

 dred dollars each for. 



"Deacon," said he, "we are going to try 

 to run Sylvester Williams for Senator from 

 this county, and we should like to have you 

 nominate him in the county convention." 



the decalogue prohibit murder? Doesn't it 

 prohibit adultery and theft and lying? It may 

 not prevent — there is no human law that does." 



Tiie colonel had to admit that it did. 



" But," said he, trying to soothe the deacon's 

 ruffled spirit, "don't you think that a good 

 law regulating what we can not wholly pre- 

 vent would be a good thing? " 



"Regulate!" said Deacon Strong, as he 

 straightened himself up ; "yes, regulate theft 1 

 regulate adultery ! regulate murder ! regulate 

 the saloon ! regulate the Devil ! One would 

 suppose that a man of your caliber would be 

 in better business." 



