926 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Nov, 15. 



But he turned and rebuked them, and said, Ye know 

 not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of 

 man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save 

 them.— I,uke9 : 55, 56. 



But he said. Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares 

 ye root up also the wheat with them. — Matt. 13 : 29. 



Some years ago, when our National conven- 

 tion was held in Buffalo I formed a very pleas- 

 ant acquaintance with Mr. Orel h. Hershiser, 

 and from that time to this I have planned 

 writing up a very interesting 50 mile wheel- 

 ride I had with Mr. H. and with Mr. Frank 

 Benton ; but other things seemed to crowd it 

 out. Just now I wish to mention a little 

 friendly talk I had with my good friend Her- 

 shiser during the trip, or perhaps I had better 

 say a little friendly rebuke or suggestion I re- 

 ceived from him. We were talking about these 

 very Home Papers and my lifework in com- 

 batting the evils of the present day. Friend 

 H. said something like this : 



" Mr. Root, let me say first that I agree with 

 you in the stand you take against the to- 

 bacco habit ; but I sometimes fear you are a 

 little hard on humanity. You can not bring 

 the world up to your standpoint, but of course 

 you can do a great deal. Now, may I suggest 

 a way in which it seems to me you might do 

 still more good — that is, from the standpoint 

 at which I look at these things ? In this great 

 city of Buffalo I meet with many experiences 

 that perhaps you do not ; and many times the 

 best of us are in a dilemma as to what is the 

 desl thing to be done. Let me give you one 

 instance. A large manufacturing company 

 for whom I do a great deal of work in my pro- 

 fession as lawyer, often requires the services 

 of an expert draftsman. In building expen- 

 sive machinery or buildings to contain such 

 machinery they want a man who will lay out 

 the work for the mechanics, taking in every 

 detail and contingency in such a way that 

 there will be no blunders and losses in conse- 

 quence of mistakes on the part of the mechan- 

 ical draftsman in laying out the work before- 

 hand. Not only hundreds of dollars but 

 sometimes thotisands depends on the accuracy, 

 skill, and fidelity of this man who puts the 

 work y?;'.^/' on paper. Well, they have found 

 just one man who comes up to the mark. 

 Give him time, and every thing he wants, and 

 he will furnish the draft complete in every re- 

 spect, and almost without mistakes- -that is, so 

 far as he is concerned. Now, this man is an 

 inveterate user of tobacco. When he really 

 gets to going, with his mind all absorbed in 

 his work, he fills his mouth with tobacco, and 

 from time to time squirts the juice right and 

 left all over the floor, and may be all over the 

 furniture. They have provided him with 

 plenty of spittoons ; but when he gets really 

 absorbed in his mental calculations, he forgets 

 all about the spittoons, and just expectorates 

 everywhere. They have remonstrated, and 

 begged of him to leave off his uncleanly habits. 



He acknowledges his faults, and promises to 

 do better ; but when he has a really difficult 

 job, especially if they hurry him up so as to 

 have it ready in a given time, back he goes to 

 his old fashion ; and, rather than interrupt 

 him, they let him go on. If they give him 

 his own way, and do not bother him, his work 

 comes out all right. His employers are, gen- 

 erally speaking, clean men, and they have 

 hunted the city over and tried the best men who 

 could be found ; but after they have footed 

 the bill caused by expensive blunders and stu- 

 pidity they have finally gone back to their 

 regular man ; and as the}' can not really do 

 any better, they let him go on after his old 

 fashion. Now, what are you going to do in a 

 case like that ? Shall we not take the world 

 as we find it, and put up with a good deal, es- 

 pecially when, as it seems, a good many times 

 we can not, take it all around, better ourselves 

 very much? This tobacco habit is, I grant 

 you, a bad thing — yes, it is a fearful habit. 

 But there are worse things than tobacco." 



This is not particularly new to me. I have 

 seen the same state of affairs a good many 

 times. Recently I was visiting a fruit-grower, 

 and became somewhat acquainted with his 

 hired man. My friends, most of you know 

 something about "hired men." This same 

 fruit-grower was telling me about having a 

 man plow, a predecessor of the one he has 

 now. It was in the spring, when every thing 

 was hurrying. His wife looked toward the 

 field one day, and did not see the horses come 

 around as she knew they should come once in 

 a while. She finally went down to the field, 

 half a mile away, to see what the matter was. 

 The horses were eating grass by the fence, and 

 the hired man was asleep under a tree. He 

 calculated he was so far away from the house, 

 and out of sight, that nobody would know 

 any thing about it. I think I will add, on my 

 own responsibility, that very likely he was out 

 the night before pretty late. Well, the man I 

 noticed was an unusually faithful, honest fel- 

 low. He was the first one up in the house- 

 hold. I noticed him crossing the road with 

 his lantern, quite a spell before the break of 

 day. The stock were properly cared for, and 

 the horses were ready to go to plow just as 

 soon as it was light enough to see. This man 

 got up thus early of his own accord. He nev- 

 er had to be called. When a storm came up 

 so he could not plow he did not stand a min- 

 ute looking at the clouds or the weather. He 

 got his team under the shed, then selected a 

 piece of timber he had probably saved up some 

 time previously, and did a very neat job in the 

 way of repairing the wagon. He was handy 

 in the use of tools, and he went to work and 

 repaired breaks, without a word from his em- 

 ployer. One afternoon I ran across him on 

 the other side of a hill, out of sight of the 

 house. He was cutting fodder corn. I stop- 

 ped a while and began to figure out how I 

 should manage if I were in his place to get the 

 work along as fast as possible. I soon dis- 

 covered that he had worked at the same prob- 

 lem. He managed so as to save steps. He 

 took as big an armful as he could carry, and 

 he hurried the work along just as if he owned 



