March, 1917 



GLEAJSIINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



215 



Thou shalt love * 

 10:27. 



And who is my neighbor? 



Look not every man on h 

 also on the things of others. — 



TH I S i s 

 C h r istmas 

 day ; and 

 may God bless 

 the message I 

 feel he has given 

 me to send to 

 you. Most of 

 you have read 

 more or less 

 about my Eglan- 

 t i n e chickens. 

 Well, when that 

 pullet commenc- 

 ed to lay when 

 she w a s n 1 y 



four months and eight days old it occur- 

 red to me that she and her sister pullets 

 would be of interest at our Medina Co. 

 fair; and it occurred to me further that 

 the good people down in Florida would 

 also like to see them at our Manatee Co. 

 fair; and to exhibit them in good style 

 I planned to have our hive-factory make 

 a nice cage for the exhibits, and to use this 

 same cage to ship the whole by express 

 when we were ready to go to our southern 

 home. Later on, as you may recall, this 

 same " youthful mother " came off with 

 a bright family of chicks, and, therefore, 

 this fine cage nicely painted (inside and 

 out) was divided off so as to have three 

 compartments — one for the fine rooster (tall 

 enough so he could stand upright with 

 his seven jDullets), and right alongside a 

 two-story compartment. The upper part 

 was for some half-grown chicks, and the 

 lower one for the precious pullet and her 

 brood. You see I set every egg laid by 

 the Eglantine, and the result was I had 

 in the cage to be expressed 21, big and 

 little. They were started Tuesday, Nov. 

 14; but altho I was on hand at every 

 arrival of the train, " no chicks " up to 

 Saturday. I had planned to go up Satur- 

 day evening; but as a colored drayman 

 promised to be on hand sure, even if the 

 train was late (if they came he was to 

 bring them down at once to our place), I 

 trusted to him. As I saw nothing of him, 

 I concluded none came; but what was my 

 surprise to see him, about 9 o'clock Sun- 

 day morning, dump my precious cage 

 down on the porch in a most dilapidated 

 condition, upside down! 



I had provided an ample supply of 

 different kinds of grain, and on a card 

 asked express agents to keep water in the 

 three water-dishes; but if you had seen 

 the seventeen remaining chickens drink you 

 would have decided they hadn't had a 

 " drink " for almost a week. They kept 



OUR HOMES 



A. I. ROOT 



thy neighbor as thyself. — Luke 



— Luke 10:29. 



is own things, but every man 



Phil, 2:4. 



drinking almost 

 the whole fore- 

 noon. All finally 

 " fetched u p " 

 but one. The 

 agent gave me a 

 statement saying 

 tlie cage came to 

 him in bad con- 

 dition, so there 

 seemed nothing 

 to do but to 

 make a bill to 

 the company for 

 the loss of four 

 half- grown 

 chicks and smashing up my fancy cage, 

 made on purpose for an exhibit at our 

 coming fair. The extra cockerel sent down 

 some time before, I valued at $10.00. I 

 paid $5.00 express charge in advance in 

 order to have the whole rig handled care- 

 fully, and we bolted some iron handles on 

 each end of the cage so it could be readily 

 lifted carefully, even by one man. One 

 end of the cage was maslicd " all to splin- 

 ters," and had been " cobbled up " and 

 tied up with ropes, etc., on the way. Of 

 course the company should pay for their 

 careless work, I argued, and so would al- 

 most anybody else; but let us pause a 

 little. On page 212, March 1, I spoke of 

 Trumbull's tract, "The Victorious Life," 

 and quoted as follows: . 



" The life that is Christ reveals to a 

 man a score of sins and failures in himself 

 where he saw only one before." 



I said there, on Feb. 3, that I had made 

 a little start on "The Life that Wins." 

 Well, I have been trying to hold to it now 

 for almost a year. When I considered 

 making out a bill for damages against the 

 express company, conscience began making 

 a protest. " What would Jesits do " were 

 they his chickens? He said, " Thou shalt 

 love thy neighbor as thyself." Are the 

 express companies my neighbors? Think 

 of it, friends. Have Ave been treating them 

 as "neighbors"? My good friends of the 

 Rural New-Yorker have been showing them 

 up {perhaps as they deserve) ; but is thei-e 

 not something to be said on their side as 

 well as on ours? We all know that the 

 way to have good neighbors is to be neigh- 

 borly ourselves. After summing up how 

 they have damaged me, suppose I go over 

 the ground again and try honestly to see 

 how much I have been to blame. All 

 right, here goes. 



No. 1. First, I told our workmen at the 

 factory to make the " cage " as light as 

 possible so as to save express charges. I 



