1903 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



4 1 



OUR 



HOMES, 



BY A. I. R OOT. 



Let us not be weary in well doing; for in due season 

 we shall reap if we faint not.— Gal. 6 : 9. 



I have told you the circumstances of friend 

 Martin's death; but I have not said much 

 in reg'ard to some things that transpired 

 after his death; and, indeed, many of the 

 friends concerned will feel like objecting- to 

 some things I am going to mention; but as 

 there are several moral lessons involved, I 

 wish to beg their indulgence just a litttle. 



Mr. Martin, when he recognized that 

 death was near, made a request that his 

 bod}' be sent to his old home in Hartford, 

 N. Y., for burial. It is not at all probable 

 that he knew how expensive such a pro- 

 ceeding was going to be; and, in fact, no- 

 body seemed aware it would cost $400 or 

 S500. There are some customs and regula- 

 tions in Cuba that we Americans do not un- 

 derstand verj' well. I shall not attempt to 

 go into the particulars, more than to say 

 that the embalming process in Cuba is very 

 expensive. Then there are certain rites 

 and time-honored customs, that I believe be- 

 long to the Roman church, that are not yet 

 overruled or set aside. 



After Rambler's death, none of the Amer- 

 ican bee-keepers felt like taking the re- 

 sponsibility of advancing the money to have 

 his request carried out; and, in fact, our 

 good friend Mr. de Beche was perhaps the 

 onlj' friend and acquaintance of Mr. Mar- 

 tin who knew enough of the Spanish laws 

 and customs to be able to do this; and when 

 he made inquiries he was informed that, 

 unless he commenced proceedings at once, 

 it would be an impossibility to get Mr. 

 Martin's remains until they had been in 

 the Roman Catholic cemetery two years. 

 At the expiration of two years the remains 

 could be taken up and carried away at an 

 expense of only about S20. After Mr. Mar- 

 tin's death some sort of paper was found — 

 I do not know exactly whether it was a will 

 or not — but this paper mentioned that he 

 had a SlOOO life-insurance policy, and he 

 directed that enough of this be used to pay 

 the expense of sending his body to his old 

 home; and the remainder was to be used in 

 purchasing an appropriate tombstone. Aft- 

 er seeing this paper, Mr. de Beche decided 

 to advance the money from his own pocket, 

 especially' as the authorities would not 

 grant him any time to confer with Mr. 

 Martin's relatives nor even with the bee- 

 keepers on the island. I was, as I have 

 told you, 60 miles away at Paso Real. Mr. 

 de Beche wrote me what he had decided to 

 do; but as I expected to see him in a few 

 days, I am afraid I did not take the trouble 

 to write him that I approved of his under- 

 taking, and would see that he did not lose 

 by coming forward at such a time in such 

 a generous way. I /<?//" this; but, as I say, 



I neglected to give him a word of encourage- 

 ment. I do not know what the American 

 bee-keepers, the friends of Rambler, did. 

 My impression is we all just let Mr. de 

 Beche go ahead. 



Some little time after the body was sent 

 away I received a letter saying the writer 

 held the life-insurance policy alluded to in 

 his will, and asked me to assist in recover- 

 ing the money. Immediately after Mr. 

 Martin's death, Mr. de Beche visited the 

 American consul, and gave him the circum- 

 stances of Mr. Martin's decease. If I am 

 correct, it devolved on the consul to appoint 

 an administrator. When informed that Mr. 

 de Beche had advanced this sum of money, 

 the consul seemed to turn it off in a sort of 

 indifferent wa3% and there the matter drop- 

 ped for some time. Mr. de Beche wrote at 

 once to Mr. Martin's friends, to whom the 

 body was to be consigned, telling what he 

 had done; but weeks passed, and he re- 

 ceived no word of encouragement — not even 

 a brief letter thanking him for advancing 

 money to carry out Mr. Martin's wishes. 

 Everybody seemed indifferent in regard to 

 the matter. Somebody said the Rambler 

 left an apiary and some property in Cali- 

 fornia, but nobody could tell any thing 

 about it. According to strict law (if the 

 matter should get into the hands of law- 

 yers) it looked a little as if our good friend 

 Mr. de Beche might not get any thing (not 

 even thanks) for the time and money he had 

 given. Of course, he relied on the will; but 

 I showed him the letter, which seemed to in- 

 dicate there was a possibility, and even a 

 probability, that nothing would be got from 

 that source. 



My good friend, did you ever in your life 

 do some generous act for somebody else, 

 prompted by the best spirit in the world, 

 and later on have your own friends turn 

 around and criticise you, and may be say 

 mean things about you for this very thing? 

 I have had just such experiences. After 

 giving mj' time and money in trying to 

 bring out good, and nothing but good, some 

 spirit of the evil one has slipped in and 

 suggested to my friends and neighbors that 

 I was prompted only by selfish motives — 

 that I had an ax hidden away somewhere 

 that I expected to "grind " by the opera- 

 tion. Now, I hope the Cuban friends will 

 forgive me when I say that in some strange 

 way (nobody knows how) the report got 

 out that Mr. de Beche was going to make a 

 ^ood thin^ by promptly handing over all 

 this money to pay for removing the body. 

 I do not know but it was intimated that it 

 did not cost between S400 and S500; and it 

 was even said that the large crop of honey 

 Mr. Martin produced was all sent to Mr. 

 de Beche, and nobody knew what had be- 

 come of it. As soon as I heard any thing 

 of this sort I promptly replied that, even 

 though Rambler did ship his honey to Mr. 

 de Beche, it all went to The A. I. Root Co. 

 to be applied on an account for supplies, 

 etc., he had bought of us. I furthermore 

 rebuked these stories by saying that both 



