GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



number of dishes. He takes what he likes, 

 and leaves the rest. Sometimes only a few 

 of the entrees are even tasted at all; but the 

 colored waiter piles all of these dishes, food 

 and all, into a big pan, and hustles them out 

 of the way.* 



At some hotels I believe they have lunch- 

 rooms where they dispose of a great deal of 

 these untouched viands at a lower price; but 

 of late, so far as my observation goes, this 

 thing seems to have been abandoned mostly. 

 Perhaps the hotel must preserve a certain 

 Hne of dignity. Our choice fruits, vegetables, 

 and meats cost a lot of money. Then the 

 cooking and serving cost a lot more money; 

 but after it is all done and on the table, the 

 stylish man or woman (I have sometimes 

 thought the women are more wasteful be- 

 cause they call for so much and eat so little) 

 wastes enough at each meal to feed a small 

 family of children. Yes, even in our own 

 country there are thousands of hard-work- 

 ing families that would be made happy by a 

 small portion of what each guest wastes at 

 every meal. This thing really pains me. 

 Even if it is true that I can afford to pay a 

 dollar for each meal three times a day— that 

 is, if I can afford it as well as some other 

 people who think they can— my conscience 

 would hurt me in doing it when so many 

 others are suffering for food. 



Carnegie has said, we are told, that, in 

 his opinion, it is a disgrace for a man to die 

 rich. I hope he thinks so still, and will al- 

 ways stick to it. I have been hoping, and 

 praying, too, that he might give some of 

 his burdensome millions that they might 

 feed the hungry and starving in different 

 parts of the world. Somehow or other the 

 millionaires think more of colleges and li- 

 braries than they do of relieving people from 

 the pangs of starvation. 



I presume many people laugh because Mrs. 

 Root and I have always been in the habit of 

 saving the ' ' fragments. ' ' We were brought 

 up that way, and I suppose we shall always 

 follow our peculiar notions, some may call 

 it, in that respect. When we are alone in 

 that cabin in the woods, we manage our pro- 

 visions in such a way that/there is never any 

 thing left for the pigs, and rarely enough 

 for a chicken; and yet we are not at all con- 

 fined to the cheaper foods. When we go to 

 Traverse City we put in a fair supply of the 

 best of every thing that is to be found in 

 the market— that is, we have whatever we 

 care for, no matter if I might, under the 

 circumstances, call it expensive. Like my 

 good friend Terry, I am fond of cheese, and 

 I like the high-priced cheeses that come in 



* The above is not all. Instead of " gathering up the 

 fragments that nothing be lost," the average girl dumps 

 the dishes, with more or less food in them, into the dish- 

 water. Then the dishwater is dumped into the slop- 

 drain, soon choking it up in spite of the skill of our 

 best sanitary plumbers. Of course, the slop-drain usu- 

 ally has a strainer of wire cloth or perforated metal; 

 but as the " stuff " does not get through fast enough 

 the "help "yanks out the strainer. This diluted rich 

 food is just the thing to ferment and produce sewer 

 gas, resulting in typhoid fever, diphtheria, and other 

 diseases. Sickness and death might have been pre- 

 vented by reasonable economy in this direction. 



little packages. Then there are other things 

 that would be expensive if we ate a little 

 and threw away the rest; but we manage to 

 have a good variety at each meal, and also 

 have each meal different from the one pre- 

 ceding. At the same time, our living ex- 

 penses are ridiculously small, you might al- 

 most say, because we manage so that noth- 

 ing is wasted. Whatever is left over, Mrs. 

 Root manages to fix up in such nice shape 

 for the next meal that it is never left over 

 a second time. 



Sometimes in the summer the bread dries 

 out, or pieces are left. These she dries still 

 more in the oven. If dried until it is brown, 

 it is a little like the German zwieback. On 

 one occasion some pieces of dried bread were 

 left in the oven when we left the cabin. A 

 month or two later I got around to our place 

 all alone and quite hungry. With some milk 

 from a neighbor's this dried bread made an 

 excellent and healthful repast. By the way, 

 when I am out on my automobile rides I 

 carry a paper bag of this dried bread. I 

 think that made and sold by the Battle Creek 

 Sanitarium is the best I have ever found. 

 Even in traveling I like my meals at regular 

 hours; and when I am out with an auto it 

 often happens (especially -when I get up at 

 daylight and start out) there is no hotel 

 near when mealtime comes. Whenever this 

 happens I get out my lunch of dried bread 

 and cheese, and I not only enjoy it, but my 

 health is ever so much better in traveling 

 than when I have a big breakfast or dinner 

 at a hotel. It saves time; and what do you 

 suppose the expense of a good meal is, made 

 in the way I have mentioned? We get the 

 zwieback in bulk for 10 cts. per lb., at our 

 groceries. I think about a cent's worth of 

 cheese and five cents' worth of dried bread, 

 with water from some wayside spring, is all 

 I need for these wayside lunches. A few 

 times my auto has got out of repair when 

 out in the country, and I never like to work 

 hard, say down under the machine, when I 

 am hungry; so you see how nicely my lunch 

 comes in. Another good thing about this in- 

 expensive lunch is, it never spoils. Some- 

 times I have no occasion to use my lunch at 

 all ; but it is just as good when I get home 

 after a trip of two weeks as it was the day 

 I started. . 



If you are giving to the cause of missions 

 to feed the starving and dying people in those 

 parts of the world where there is famine, 

 you have so much more money to spare for 

 this work where you live in the way I have 

 mapped out; so it is not at all unreasonable 

 to say, we take the surplus food that is 

 thrown away at hotels and send to the starv- 

 ing people away across the seas. Instead of 

 sending the food which you do not want or 

 need, you send the money it would cost. 

 But this is not all of it. There are two 

 sides to my talk to-day, and I am just get- 

 ing over to the other part of it. Let me di- 

 gress a little as I start out on my other talk. 



When I was out on that automobile trip 

 of two weeks across our State diagonally, 

 which I told you about, I discovered I could 



