JANUARY 15, 1914 



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Our Homes 



A. I. Root 



Suffer little children, and forbid them not to come 

 unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. — 

 Matt. 19:14. 



Take heed that ye despise not one of these little 

 ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels 

 do always behold the face of my Father which is in 

 heaven. — Matt. 18:10. 



By the way in which I have frequently 

 spoken of Mrs. Root, in these Home papers, 

 some of you might imagine she was without 

 weaknesses like the rest of humanity ; and 

 if she imagined I was going to bring out 

 some of her weaknesses right here in these 

 Home papers before all the world I suspect 

 she would " go for " me with a stool or 

 chair or whatever else might come handy. 

 But I am going to risk it at all events; and 

 I am going to speak of two special weak- 

 nesses. First, she will not put up with 

 being deprived of God's fresh air. If you 

 shut her up in a close room with the win- 

 dows fastened down, and tell her she has 

 got to sleep there she will get " fighting 

 mad." Perhaps that is a little exaggeration 

 after all; but still I think it is not very far 

 out of the wa}'. If you ask her to go to 

 prayer-meeting, and there are more than a 

 hundred in one little room, with the doors 

 and windows all shut, I am afraid she loses 

 her religion in her indignation; and I must 

 own up that I do not know but I stand 

 px'etty near her in that respect. But per- 

 haps I have learned to put up with bad air 

 a little more patiently than she does, and 

 some of her children are just like her. They 

 say they will not go, unless they can have 

 good air to breathe. I hope that some of 

 the good people who complain, if a window 

 is opened just a little, near them, will read 

 this and think about it. (If they would 

 pray about it too I think they would do 

 better yet.) Many a time have I been en- 

 joying a good sei'mon and feeling the spir- 

 itual uplift because some nice fresh air was 

 coming in from the window near by, when 

 some old person would get up and shut the 

 window clear down, when he could have 

 taken a seat away from the draft, with even 

 less trouble. 



Another one of Mrs. Root's weaknesses 

 that I am going to s^Deak of just now is that 

 she can not keep still when she hears a baby 

 cry; and I do believe she has more sense 

 and wisdom in knowing how to do the right 

 thing to make a baby haiDjDy than anybody 

 else in the world. Now, that is a pretty big 

 claim, is it not? I do not know all the good 

 women in the world, and so you will have 

 to make allowance for my narrow vision in 

 regard to motherly women who love babies. 



I told you some time ago of how a baby's 

 ]3laintive cry roused Mrs. Root's motherly 

 instincts; but for fear you did not all see 

 it I will briefly go over it again. By some 

 blunder Mrs. Root and I had no jjlace to 

 sleep except in an ujDper berth when coming 

 home from Florida. I think she was a little 

 car-sick, and feeling badly; and when told 

 she would have to climb up into the " loft," 

 through no fault of our own, she became a 

 little contrary and said she would rather sit 

 up all night. But she could nut sit up all 

 night, because there was no place to sit. At 

 this juncture a good woman (thank God for 

 good women, " the salt of the earth") sug- 

 gested that her two children would gladly 

 exchange their lower berth for the upper 

 one; and, sure enough, it was just fun for 

 them to climb up. By the time we began to 

 feel happy, and were getting into our lower 

 berth, somebody insisted on having the heat 

 on in the steam-pipes ; but the porter said 

 we could not have a lower window open, for 

 it was against the rules. Then Mrs. Root 

 became cross again. She said she would not 

 sleep in that hot place, without a breath of 

 air, for all the money in the world. Come 

 to think of it, however, I do not think she 

 said that in just so many words. She said 

 it only by action. About this time I began 

 to be so worried and troubled that that little 

 prayer of mine started up of itself — ■" Lord, 

 lielp ;" and right away after, Mrs. Root was 

 startled by the plaintive cry of a baby. She 

 asked our next neighbor about it, and was 

 told that the young mother was so badly 

 car-sick that she was vomiting, and a lot of 

 women were trying to pacify the baby. 

 They added that the sick mother had only 

 ai; upper berth, and she was so sick she felt 

 as if she could not climb up into it. Can 

 you guess what Mrs. Root did? She fairly 

 insisted that the poor mother with her baby 

 should have our lower berth and we would 

 climb " upstairs." But the mother protest- 

 ed against having old people like ourselves 

 get away up there. But Mrs. Root vehe- 

 mently declared she would much rather have 

 an upper berth, and did not mind climbing 

 up at all. There, now I have put my foot 

 in it. Don't you see I started out to say 

 that Mrs. Root had only two weaknesses — 

 first, she always gi'umbled when she could 

 not have plenty of fresh air; second, she 

 would never lie down and go to sleep and 

 get the rest needed when she heard a baby 

 cry (and I honestly believe it does not make 

 much difference whether the baby is any 

 relation to her or not). And now I have 



