1904 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1029 



OUR 

 HOIS4ES, 



BY ;A;.;li.:R.OOT. 



She looketh well to the ways of her household, and 

 oateth not the bread of idleness. — Prov. 31 :27. 



I have oftentimes mentioned that, in our 

 home, Mrs. Root does her own work without 

 any help. When she and I are alone we get 

 along very nicely ; and when the children 

 come home they, of course, know how to 

 turn in and help,"^ so Mrs. Root's cares and 

 responsibilities are less (or ought to be) in- 

 stead of greater, for the Root children know 

 how to do things the way their mother 

 taught them. Of course, when there is 

 sickness (and this has happened only a few 

 times, for which may the Lord be praised) 

 we must have hired help. I do not wish to 

 be uncharitable and severe on the average 

 hired help in the home; but most of you 

 know something about how difficult it is to 

 get help that will really make things easier. 

 Perhaps this is especially true when we get 

 to be well along in life. It is very trying 

 to old people to have somebody move their 

 things around and get them out of place; to 

 pick up utensils and drop them where last 

 used. And, by the way, my experience is 

 not only in the home, but in the factory or 

 anywhere else there are only a few people 

 in this world who will put things back where 

 they find them after they are done using 

 them. If fathers and mothers would only 

 drill their children from early childhood to 

 be careful about hindering the business of 

 the world by handling and getting things 

 out of place, what a blessing it would be to 

 this world! 



Yesterday a mother and two children 

 started to go up in an elevator. One was a 

 boy three years old, and the other was a 

 baby in its cab. There was some little dif- 

 ficulty about getting the cab into the eleva- 

 tor, and the boy in charge left his post just 

 an instant, and stepped out to help the 

 mother. As soon as his back was turned, 

 the little boy grabbed the lever and gave it 

 a pull. The elevator started, and the baby 

 was crushed to death right before the moth- 

 er' and the little brother. This boy had not 

 been taught to keep his itching fingers off 

 from things that did not belong to him. He 

 did not know better than to meddle with 

 dangerous machinery; and the saddest part 

 of it is, this world is full of just such med- 

 dling children. I know of a few careful 

 mothers who teach their children— boys and 

 girls— so thoroughly and faithfully that they 

 never touch things without permission. But 

 I know of hundreds of other mothers whose 

 children can hardly be trusted a second. 

 Well, friends, the reason we have so much 

 help that is more bother than it is worth, in- 

 doors and out, is because they have not been 

 taught in early childhood to go through the 

 world without making mischief and trouble 

 at every step. I know there are a few hired 



CZZ) 



girls who will go into any home, catch on to 

 what is being done, and astonish people by 

 letting them know they are jewels of flesh 

 and blood in the shape of hired help; but 

 when these same jewels are once found you 

 can not get them, no matter what wages 

 you offer, for they have permanent places, 

 and their employers will not let them go. 

 The above are the reasons why Mrs. Root 

 as well as thousands like her prefer to do 

 their own work. This being true, it be- 

 hooves every loyal husband to do every 

 thing in his power to save the steps of the 

 dear little feet that minister to his wants. 



I am now going to say something about 

 house-building. Just 23 years ago Mrs. 

 Root and I decided to build a brick house. 

 We studied plans, talked with architects, 

 and went over the ground most thoroughly— 

 at least we thought so. After all our figur- 

 ing, however, we made some bad blunders. 

 The diagram below will explain one or two 

 of them. 



Let D represent the 

 dining - room with the 

 dining-table in the cen- 

 ter. K represents the 

 kitchen with the cook- 

 ing-stove pretty nearly 

 in the middle. Let 

 P represent the pantry. 

 This pantry has two 

 doors; but for 21 years 

 it has had only one. 

 O represents the old 

 door and N the new 

 one. We had an expen- 

 sive architect, and we 

 discussed the matter of 

 mistakes before we went 

 to work at it. He said 

 he would make good any 

 mistake he made in his 

 figures. One of his worst 

 mistakes was in making 

 the pantry, P, two feet 

 longer than he intended. 

 The dotted line near the letter O shows about 

 where the end of the pantry should have been. 

 By getting it two feet longer, the path from 

 the stove into the pantry was made so much 

 longer. At the opposite end of the pantry 

 let A represent an outside window. Right 

 under this window is a broad shelf. Under 

 the shelf are drawers for spices, flour, meal, 

 etc. A great deal of work was done on this 

 shelf below the window A ; but to get to 

 that shelf one had to go around through the 

 door at in a roundabout way. At the letter 

 W there is a pair of wide doors that open so 

 as to pass things from the pantry over a 

 broad shelf at W, to the dining-room table. 

 Well, after putting up with this awkward 

 arrangement, necessitating useless travel 

 (shall I say hundreds of miles ? Well, it 

 was a good many miles in the 21 years, I 

 assure you) Mrs. Root all at once said she 

 wanted a carpenter to make a door at N. 

 This we call the new door. Now, to go from 

 the stove to the shelf at A she goes through 

 N, in a straight line. After this door was 



o. 



r 





WOODSHED. 



