26 FORTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES. 



the winter I went back home, put the bees in the cellar 

 December 7, and then locking up cellar and house for 

 the winter I took my wife and child to Cincinnati, from 

 which place we did not return till late the following May. 

 The bees were left entirely to their own devices 

 throughout the winter. In the latter part of March the 

 weather at Cincinnati became quite warm, and I wrote 

 to my bee-keeping friend, Mr. Lester, to get him to take 

 the bees out of the cellar. He took them out under pro- 

 test, for Cincinnati weather and Marengo weather are 

 two different things, and when they were taken out, 

 March 31, they were probably ushered into a rather cold 

 world. They were in bad condition when taken out — 

 bees do not always winter in a cellar in the best possible 

 manner with their owner several hundred miles away — 

 and when I got home in May I found only three of the 

 nineteen left alive. 



THREE YEARS IN CHICAGO. 



Immediately upon the close of the Cincinnati Festi- 

 val I began work for the Mason & Hamlin Organ Co., 

 it their Chicago office, where I staid three years. My 

 wife and little boy staid on the farm at Marengo during 

 the summer, and spent the winters with me in Chicago. 

 Notwithstanding the fact that I could have only a few 

 days with the bees each summer, I still clung to them. 

 At least I could lie awake nights dreaming and plan- 

 ning as to what might be done with bees, and I could 

 do that just as well in Chicago as Marengo. 



One good thing that resulted from that three years' 

 sojourn in Chicago was an appreciation of country life 

 that I had never had before. The office, 80 & 82 Adams 

 street, was in the heart of the burnt district left bare 

 by the great fire of 187 1, and to one with a love for every- 

 thing green that grows it was desolate indeed. A few 

 weeds that grew in a vacant lot hard by were a source 



