1911 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



285 



the garage, and then went back after the 

 poultry. The hen and the ducklings were 

 taken along and delivered at their destina- 

 tion, much to their relief and mine. After 

 a diagnosis of the machine the expert im- 

 formed me that the principal trouble was 

 with the coils. There was "cross-firing." 

 I could hardly agree with him until the 

 coils and vibrators were removed from the 

 machine. Then with an extra set of bat- 

 teries he sent a current through one of the 

 pairs of coils alone. Well, it not only work- 

 ed the vibrator belonging to that coil, but 

 the vibrator belonging to the other coil also 

 worked by spells. This working by spells 

 fired the gas at the wrong moment, and 

 threw every thing into a jumble, filling the 

 valves and cylinders with unconsumed car- 

 bon, and making trouble generally all over. 

 I asked him if he could not fix the machine 

 so I could use it for the busy week that was 

 before me. He said he knew of no possible 

 remedy unless I could borrow a new set of 

 coils that could be fitted to the machine. 

 By the way, this may be a bad place to stop 

 my story, but I want to moralize right here: 



Cross-firing or short-circuiting with elec- 

 trical apparatus is a bad thing. The trou- 

 ble with the coils could not be repaired, be- 

 cause the maker had covered the whole thing 

 with melted resin; and it could not be taken 

 apart very well except by the manufacturer. 

 Under the circumsances it ivas very un- 

 fortunate, and it occurred to me that we 

 have this sort of "cross-firing" sometimes 

 among humanity. Many of us have la- 

 mented that the Anti-saloon League and 

 the Prohibition party should have wasted 

 their time and energy by cross-firing (pro- 

 ducing "explosions" at the wrong time and 

 in the wrong direction) , giving our enemies 

 an advantage when it was of the utmost im- 

 portance that we should all pull together 

 and in the same direction. Sometimes in 

 our bee conventions, where a hundred or 

 more people are giving their precious time, 

 some brother gets contrary or angry, as did 

 Jonah and Elijah, and blocks the wheels of 

 progress, stirs up others, and throws every 

 thing out of joint just because his energy 

 and zeal are out of time and out of tune. I 

 hardly need remind you that even in reli- 

 gious meetings among churches and church- 

 members this same spirit of ill-timed disa- 

 greement sometimes comes in. May God 

 help us all to beware of getting out of tune, 

 and not "keeping step" in our honest ef- 

 forts to better things in this world of ours. 



It was getting dinner-time. I had not 

 had my nap just before dinner, and I could 

 not get home without walking a mile or 

 more through the hot sand and sunshine. 

 I could have taken a foot-path on a diago- 

 nal were it not that my crate of eggs was 

 still close beside the highw^ay in the noon- 

 day sun, and had to be looked after. Do 

 you wonder that I lost my usual good nature 

 and got a little cross? The expert said he 

 would, if I thought best, go over the ma- 

 chine very carefully after dinner, and see if 

 it was possible to fix it so I could use it dur- 



ing the busy week that lay before me; but 

 he had but very little hope without a new 

 coil to take the place of the defective one. 

 There was no help for it. I put off with 

 rapid strides for my crate of eggs, if per- 

 chance no colored boy nor anybody else had 

 meddled with it. By the way, let me re- 

 mark that in and about Bradentown there 

 is the greatest respect shown for other peo- 

 ple's property of any place I have ever lived 

 in. I have told you before that people there 

 as a rule never lock their houses. Why, one 

 evening when Mrs. Root and I left prayer- 

 meeting we went to the baker's to get some 

 bread. The baker himself also keejos a sort 

 of restaurant. He and his wife had also 

 gone to prayer-meeting. The front door 

 was locked, but we found the back door open 

 as usual, and I walked into the store and 

 went behind the counter without any trou- 

 ble, and meditated helping myself to the 

 bread. I laughingly told them afterward 

 that they went to meeting and left the back 

 door unlocked. To my surprise my good 

 friend Trueblood and his w^ife informed me 

 they never locked that back door, and, fur- 

 thermore, that they had never lost a nickel's 

 worth by leaving their property in that 

 shape. This, too, was on a busy street, and 

 they kept the usual assortment of cakes, 

 pies, etc., right in a showcase that is also 

 unlocked. The secret of this is, dear friends, 

 there has never been a saloon in Manatee 

 County — at least that is one great secret of 

 this. Another thing, the folks there are a 

 church-going and Christian people. 



I found my eggs, as a matter of course; 

 but I had to carry them a quarter of a mile 

 to find a place where I could put them in a 

 neighbor's yard until later. When I got 

 home I needed my sleep and I needed my 

 dinner. In fact, I was late for both; but to 

 save Mrs. Root's time I decided to have my 

 nap afier dinner. She had an excellent 

 dinner, but I was in a bad frame of mind, 

 and I fear I answered her kind questions in 

 any thing but a Christianlike manner. Per- 

 haps she did not remember it; but I did and 

 do. I went upstairs and tried to take my 

 accustomed nap on my nice soft bed right 

 before the open window where there was a 

 delicious cooling breeze, as there almost al- 

 ways is from across the Great Gulf in Flori- 

 da; but I wa^ so much disturbed by the ma- 

 chine that I could not sleep. And then I 

 was disturbed by another thing, i was re- 

 bellious. 1 had planned a lot of things to 

 be done during that busy forenoon, and had 

 not touched them. 



Here is something from the Sunday 

 School Times that illustrates the point 1 

 wish to make: 



Dr. Alexander McLaren has Illustrated it well 

 when he says: "The consciousness of God's pres- 

 ence with us is a very delicate thing. It is like a 

 very sensitive thermometer, which will drop when 

 an iceberg Is a league off over the sea. At bottom 

 there is only one thing that separates a soul from 

 God, and that is sin of some sort." 



My rebellious spirit had cut me off from 

 the consciousness of God's presence. It 

 was something that had not happened for a 



