March, 1922 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



175 



ering. Satan suggested that Mr. Bingham 

 might use my humble prayer as an occasion 

 to cast ridicule on the followers of our Lord 

 and Savior. On the way home he said some- 

 thing like this: 



"Mr. Root, I want to get off bright and 

 early in the morning. Can we not settle 

 this matter of the smoker before we go to 

 bed? I shall sleep a little better if we can 

 settle it in a friendly way. ' ' 



On the impulse of the moment, or maybe 

 it was at the suggestion of the dear Savior, 

 I said: 



"Friend Bingham, I believe you are hon- 

 est in thinking that my smoker is an in- 

 ■fringement on your invention; but whether 

 j'ou are right or wrong, rather than go to 

 the expense of settling it by law I will give 

 way. I will stop making the smoker. ' ' 



He was evidently surprised, and said: 



"Why, Mr. Eoot, this is unexpected. Of 

 course I will pay you something for giving 

 me the right of way in the smoker busi- 

 ness." 



I told him I did not want anything — in 

 fact, I preferred not to take a cent. Then 

 we dropped the matter with the understand- 

 ing that I would, at least for the present, 

 buy smokers from him. 



Now, friends, you may think me stupid; 

 and, in fact, if it had not been that the 

 Lord Jesus Christ has taken care of my 

 stupidity, it would have made me lots of 

 trouble in times past. When I reached 

 home I told Mrs. Eoot about it, and she 

 said: 



"Why, my dear husband, I am afraid 

 you have done something that you will re- 

 pent of. This giving smokers away by the 

 hundreds to those who stop using tobacco — 

 what are you going to do about it? Are 

 you going to buy them of Mr. Bingham at 

 something like a dollar apiece to give 

 away?" 



Now, here conies in the stupidity. When 

 I agreed to give up making that little fifty- 

 cent smoker I actually forr/nt the matter of 

 giving them to the boys if they would not 

 learn to smoke. Then I had to own up to 

 the dear wife that I did it without consider- 

 ing what would happen. Then she replied: 



"Well, what are you going to do in this 

 mmhJle^ " 



' ' My dear wife, we are going to kneel 

 dow^n and ask the dear Lord to help us out 

 of this trouble just as he has helped us out 

 of other troubles in the past." 



And now, dear friends, here comes in the 

 "long-range" answer to prayer. The next 

 morning, when I went down to the factory 

 I found on my desk a queer-looking package 

 that had come in the mail after I left the 

 office the night before. It was a bellows 

 smoker made on an entirely new principle, 

 and it came from away off in the mountains 

 of California, with a letter reading some- 

 thing as follows: 



"Mr. Root, I have invented a bee-smoker 

 o» a different principle, and I think it is 



better than anything else the world has 

 yet had. I was going to get it patented 

 but after tliiuking it over I told my wife I 

 would rather have the fun of surprising our 

 friend A. I. Root than to get quite a sum 

 of money out of it when patented, and here 

 is the smoker. I know from your habits 

 that you will enjoy giving it to the world." 



I took a look at it, and then marched to 

 the tinshop that had just been started in 

 our new brick building, and showed it to 

 the tinners. To our surprise we found we 

 had all the machinery necessary to make 

 them at much less expense than those we 

 had been making; and before night we had 

 a dozen or two ready to go out. More than 

 a thousand were given away to those who 

 took the tobacco pledge; and all along the 

 years since this incident kind letters have 

 come from those who broke off from the 

 habit years ago thru the influence of that 

 little smoker. The man who sent me the 

 ' ' cold blast smoker ' ' was our old friend, 

 J. G. Corey of California, and it was my 

 pleasure to pay him a visit years after; 

 and in one of these visits I wandered away 

 off to Puget Sound, and stopped there with 

 an old friend, H. A. March. Over the man- 

 telpiece was a bright new tin smoker that 

 evidently had never been used. When I 

 asked what it meant, friend March set it 

 down opposite me and held up his hand, 

 saying: 



"Mr. Root, can you hold your hand any 

 stiller than I hold mine?" 



I replied, "No, friend March, I am sure 

 I can not, for your hand is as steady as if 

 it were made of cast iron. ' ' 



Then he explained to me that some time 

 before, maybe two or three years, he was 

 run down, broken up, and nervous. His 

 hand shook so that he began to think he 

 would have to stop writing letters. He 

 consulted the doctors, but they could not 

 give him any help. After suffering for 

 months he saw my offer of a smoker to any 

 reader of Gleanings who would give up the 

 use of tobacco. He said: "Now, I can not 

 begin to tell you w^hat a job it was; and to 

 help me fight it out I put thfj^t smoker up 

 there where I could see it, and it has helped 

 me, nobody knows how many times, to hold 

 fast to my pledge. My experience was like 

 your father's. In just a few weeks I began 

 to have better digestion and better health 

 than I had known for years. ' ' 



This is a sample of the letters I received, 

 and now here is something more: 



Of course the above was written up, and, 

 as I told you, hundreds of smokers were 

 given away. But just one Vear from the 

 day we began making the cold-blast smoker 

 we had had cash sales of over 20,000. Just 

 one thing more: 



One of the great dailies published a little 

 item something like this: 



"Down at Medina, Ohio, there is a queer 

 chap in the bee business, and he thinks it is 

 wicked to smoke pipes &nd cigars; and to 



