190 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb 15 



out boldly and declare he does not use to- 

 bacco, and never did use it? or is it going 

 to raise him in the estimation of every 

 man, woman, and child in the whole United 

 States? 



The idea that it will net do for an editor 

 to let his religion get into his paper, or for 

 a man in the mercantile business to give up 

 the sale of tobacco and cigars, was illus- 

 trated most vividl}^ by a story our good pas- 

 tor told in his sermon last Sunday. I am 

 well aware that I can not tell it as he did. 

 If I could stand by you all I might do a lit- 

 tle better; but I will do the best I can in 

 telling it to you in print. When our pastor 

 commenced the story he came out from be- 

 hind the pulpit; and the good-natured com- 

 ical look on his face as he commenced gave 

 his hearers notice that something good was 

 coming. You may imagine, if you please, 

 that your old friend A. I. Root has left his 

 place beside the stenographer, and is stand- 

 ing before j-ou while he talks. 



THE STORY OF THE BOY, THE DOG, AND 

 THE RABBIT. 



One bright morning, after a light fall of 

 snow, a boy started out with his dog. 

 Pretty soon the dog pricked up his ears, 

 and started off on the freshly made track 

 of a rabbit. The boy put after the dog as 

 fast as he could. In due time the two were 

 led into the woods; and, finding the rabbit 

 had gone into a hole, both boy and dog pro- 

 ceeded to dig it out. They found they had 

 a pretty big job on hand, but worked an 

 hour or two befure they gave it up, which 

 they finall}' did because they were both too 

 tired to work any longer, or perhaps it was 

 dinner time. Before abandoning the work, 

 however, the boy kicked in the dirt he and 

 the dog had thrown out, and picked up some 

 bright pieces of mineral that looked as if 

 they might be ores of some kind. He put 

 them in his pocket and carried them home. 

 One evening when he was playing with his 

 geological specimens his father, who sat 

 near reading his piper, glanced over his 

 spectacles to see what the boj' was amus- 

 ing himself with. After questioning the 

 lad as to where and how he got them, the 

 father hunted up an old cyclopedia and 

 spent quite a little time in looking at spec- 

 imens and reading the description. Next 

 day he went to town and showed them to 

 the principal of the high school. They 

 made some further investigations, which 

 resulted in calling the State geologist. 

 With suitable help they made considerable 

 excavations around where the rabbit had 

 gone into the ground. Perhaps the boy 

 thought that they, like himself, were think- 

 ing of nothing but getting that rabbit; but 

 in a little time when men versed in miner- 

 als had looked over the locality the father 

 sold his farm for ^//y times the value he 

 had always been placing on it. The money 

 he received gave the father an opportunity 

 of carr3Mngout a good many projects he had 

 in mind, but which he had been compelled 

 to give up heretofore on account of poverty. 



Among these projects was not only the edu- 

 cating of himself in certain lines, but also 

 the fond one of sending his boj' to college, 

 and giving him a chance to be of some value 

 to the world. 



My storj' is now ended so far as the fa- 

 ther is concerned; but what about the boy 

 and the dog? I suppose the a'o^was a good 

 deal disappointed from the fact that, after 

 all this ado and hard work, they did not 

 get the rabbit. We need not be surprised 

 at this, because a dog's intellect can not 

 well go any further than rabbits. But how 

 about the boy? Well, the story goes that 

 he continued to weep, and would not be 

 pacified, even though his father tried to 

 persuade him that the rabbit was of no 

 particular account compared with what he 

 and the dog did tind in digging. Need I 

 su^'gest the moral? We, citizens of the 

 United States, people whom God has per- 

 mitted to live in this glorious twentieth cen- 

 tury, are, too many of us, setting our aims 

 and aspirations on something of no more 

 account than the rabbit which the boj' and 

 the dog did not get. In our stupidity we 

 continue to magnify' the value of the rabbit 

 while we ignore and neglect the great 

 treasures that lie peeping out of the earth 

 ready to be picked up if we will only rec- 

 ognize their value. Tobacco, strong drink, 

 the dance-hall, cards, and / should say the 

 theaters, may be represented by the rabbit. 

 The ingots of ore that are kicked around as 

 worthless, while we are scrambling for the 

 rabbit — these ingots that are sometimes 

 tramped into the dirt and mud out of sight, 

 may be represented by trutli, honesty, tem- 

 erance. Christian character, communion 

 with the great Father above, etc. These 

 latter are things that will enable us to rise 

 above our surroundings, to get an educa- 

 tion, to hold positions of honor, to labor for 

 the welfare and best interests of the wo'^ld 

 about us, and to receive finally, in the 

 world to come, life everlasiine^. It is all 

 right to go out with a dog to chase rabbits 

 while we are young; but is it not true that 

 too many of us do nothing of more impor- 

 tance than chase rabbits all the rest of our 

 lives, like the story I told you a few months 

 ago of the man who, with bent back and 

 sad countenance, wasted all his time in 

 raking up leaves, straws, and trash, even 

 while an angel held just over his head a 

 golden crown, proffering it as a free gift if 

 he would look up and abandon his rickety 

 old rake, and give it to the angel that held 

 the shining crown? Bro. Whitcomb and 

 Bro. Heise have told about letting go of these 

 things that would drag us down and not 

 up, and reaching forth for the golden crown 

 that is within the grasp of each and every 

 one. It used to be the fashion in revival 

 times to talk about heaven and the life to 

 come. Just now ihe world is learning that 

 there is a heaven on earth for all who are 

 willing to put away selfishness, and to re- 

 ceive it at the hands of the Master; for he 

 says that for every thing that we give up 

 we shall receive a hundred fold more in 



