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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



June, 1922 



have very, very often thought of you since Mrs. 

 Root's death, and I have learned with very great 

 satisfaction how bravely you are bearing this bur- 

 den of sorrow. May I tell you of a little incident 

 that happened immediately after Mrs. Root's death 

 here ? Several of the office men were standing to- 

 gether Kjicaking how heavy the blow was that had 

 fallen upon you, when one said this: "You fel- 

 lows all say how lonely A. I. Root must be down 

 there alone in Bradentown, but I want to tell 

 you he is not alone the way you or I would be, 

 for he, literally, walks in the friendship and com- 

 panionship of God. and God is just as actually at 

 present a friend to him as his dead wife could 

 be." I could not help thinking what a compli- 

 ment this was to your religion and your faith m 

 that religion. 



Again expressing my sympathy to you and ex- 

 tending to you my every well wish, I am. 



Yours sincerely, ' H. G. ROWE, 



Managing Editor, Gleanings in Bee Culture. 



Let me now tell you, my dear friends, 

 that the man who said the above in quota- 

 tion marks was none other than the boy 

 Jacob of years ago (see page 582, Septem- 

 ber, 1921) whom I told you about, and whom 

 I found in the Abbeyville Sunday school of 

 years ago. Perhaps he has put it a little too 

 .strongly in saying that God is just as actual- 

 ly present, and is just as good a friend to 

 me, as was the dead wife. I felt that I did 

 not really live up to that high standard, 

 but I tried hard, and prayed that I might 

 be strengthened by that high testimonial.^ 



Another letter comes from a good Chris- 

 tion friend of mine, and a beekeeper of 

 years gone by, Mr. Christian Weckesser. 



To my dear old friend A. I.: You have my sin- 

 cere sympathy in your loss. I think I know how 

 to svmpathize; while my own loss seems so great, 

 and "though she was called away over a year ago, 

 the loss is as keen as ever, to me; still the lines 

 of Whittier come to mind often. I will enclose 

 them. Christian Weckesser. 



Doylestown, Ohio, March 30, 1922. 



"And yet, dear heart, remembering thee, 

 Am I not richer than of old? 



Safe in thy immortality. 



What change can reach the wealth I hold? 

 What chance can mar the pearl and gold 



Thy love hath left in trust with me? 



"And while in life's late afternoon, 



Where cool and long the shadows grow, 

 I walk to meet the night that soon 



Shall shape and shadow overflow, 

 I cannot feel that thou art far, 

 For near at need the angels are. 

 And when the sunset gates unbar 



Shall I not see thee waiting stand 

 And, white against the evening star. 



The welcome beckoning of thy hand?" 



— Whittier. 



If you will turn to page 253 of Gleanings 

 for April you will see that our talented 

 friend Grace Allen has grasped hold of the 

 same faith that inspired Whittier in the 

 quotation above. 



Let me tell you that my days and hours 

 have not all been sorrowful. There have 

 been times when I felt the presence of the 

 Holy Spirit to such an extent that I got at 

 least a nlimpse of what Peter calls "joy un- 

 speakable and full of glory." 



Tn closing let me say that the salvation 

 of this whole world depends, in my opinion, 

 as much, and perhaps more, on the faithful 

 observance of the marriage vow taken when 

 you two started out in life together. Tf 

 vou liold fast to anything, as sacred and 



important, let it be your marriage vow. 

 Dear Mrs. Root — bless her memory — was 

 faithful every hour and every minute of the 

 61 years we lived together. 



In 1859 I got hold of a book on shorthand 

 entitled Pitman 's Manual of Phonography. 

 At that time I was keeping a diary, and 

 writing in it every day. But my homemade 

 shorthand was such that it is almost im- 

 possible for anybody to read it now; but my 

 long-time friend, W. P. Eoot, has managed 

 to "translate" the following: 



"Tonight ends the year 1859, and tomorrow it 

 will be 1860. Another year has past and gone. 

 The greatest event of this year has been a recon- 

 ciliation with my own dear Sue. Mine, for ever." 



By the way, one of the best illustrations 

 of the way a man feels (or should feel) 

 after the loss of a good wife occurs to me 

 right here. It may sound a little slangy, 

 but it seems to hit the right spot. A writer 

 said he and tho good wife had been working 

 in harmony in all their undertakings to such 

 an extent that they worked like a pair of 

 shears. One blade, of course, is of no ac- 

 count without its mate; and many times of 

 late I have had the feeling that for the rest 

 of my life I should be something like a pair 

 of shears with one of the, hlades missing. 



Flying-machines Versus Horses, Trucks, 

 Railways or Steamboats. 



"Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before." 



Right close to the office where I dictate 

 is a hive of unusually energetic Italian bees. 

 They are just now scampering into the hive, 

 not only with great loads of honey but tre- 

 mendous loads of golden-yellow pollen. The 

 honey comes from the fruit bloom, but I 

 have not yet decided where they get such 

 big loads of pollen. Well, now, this thing 

 lias been going on, I might say, ever since 

 the time of Adam; and yet so far as I know 

 no one has as yet even suggested that the 

 bees demonstrate to us that the cheapest 

 way to move freight of any sort is by the 

 "AIR" route. Here in Ohio, as I have told 

 you before, we have a clay soil on which, 

 sometimes, without good roads, a team can 

 do but little more than pull an empty wagon, 

 while we are spending millions in making 

 good hard roads, only to find that these new- 

 ly invented trucks tliat carry so many tons 

 spoil our roads almost as fast as we can 

 make them. Then we have to go to a still 

 larger expense to lay tracks through hills 

 and valleys for steam and electric cars. 

 When Wilber Wright made his first trip out 

 into the great free air and back again with 

 his tlying-machine, I told him that he had 

 that day demonstrated the possibility of 

 travel without macadamized roads or rail- 

 ways. 



Now, will somebody get right to work and 

 tell what proportion the honey and pollen 

 bear to the weight of the bee that carries 

 tliem? and has not the bee been demonstrat- 

 ing for ages past the superiority of the 

 "nir route" over anything else for moving 



