Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1892-12-01
CHAPTER L.

as many reports OF county and State
fairs still prove, and his honey was the
sweetest and clearest. that ever reached
the markets of Boston and New York
He knew what to plant and when to
plant it in order to have a great deal
besides chance bloom for his bees to de-
pend upon, so besides getting more
honey than anyone else he never lost
swarm of bees by a strike against poor
browsing ground and a consequent mi
grafton in search OF better.
AS for heredity, why. human nature
was almost all he found worth studying
after he left school. An early copy in
his writing book at school had in
formed him that THE noblest study of
mankind is man." and his father had
Informed him, as the result of personal
expe Rnce, that whoever had made up
that NE had a very level head, so
Jack had excessively and successfully
sized up every man in the village before
he himself was old enough to follow a
pillow. AS he gained years and knowl-
edge, he was taught by reason and in
stinct that woman, being OF the same
species as man, was also a noble study.
He soon informed himself, with some
surprise and not a little Indignation,
that woman was the harder study of
the two; at least. he made more mis-
takes than had been his lot while con-
templating the few men and boys of
his native village. The same rules did
not seem to work; the girls who ought
TO be incest, according to masculine
standards, did not amount to anything;
at any rate, they were not particularly
interesting, yet others, whose faces and
features wouldn't have promised any
thing in a man, proved delightful COM
pany. In his desire to study more
carefully he made his acquaintance as
close as possible, and some girls were
so mistaken as to his intentions that,
when disappointed they had their
fathers or big brothers call Jack to ac-
count in a way that caused his bones
to ache for some weeks. His attempts
TO explain were laughed to scorn or
sworn at, so when his third difficulty Of
the kind was manifestly impending, the
Well-meaning but laundering youth
shook the dust of his native town from
his feet, and made haste to bury him
self and his sorrows in Boston.
But change of base did not change his
business and mental bent. Although he
took the first business chance that
offered, he often made a great detOur on
his way between Office and boarding
house to take in the streets of commits
sion merchants who dealt in honey, and
he fingered critical and lovingly over
the samples exposed to view. He
stndied people, too, though afar off. He
did not know the family history of any
one whom he met in business or on the
streets, so he had to content himself
with studying physiognomy. There
must have been method in his madness,
for his employers found him quite use
full in Sizing up" new customers, and
he had promising future before him,
when a chance newspaper paragraph
caused him to leave at short notice and
hurry to the South. II was not a cues
ton of heredity that caused this move,
it was the report of a new wrinkle in
the honey business. Up in the New
born and brought up, the sum-
mers are short and the winters
long, so the bees have a short working
season and must have a large part of
their harvest left for their own sus-
tenance during the winter. Here came
a story, however, Of fellow who put
up a lot of hives on big scow, took
them away down the Mississippi below
New Orleans. about the end of Febru-
airy, where everything came early into
bloom, and had himself towed about a
hundred miles each week, thus follow
ing the blooming season and giving the
bees the best chance that nature could
provide for creatures whose instinct it
was to work so long as there was any
thing to work upon. The plan sounded
sensible; if any one could make money
In that way he, Jack Brewster, with his
nnequaled knowledge of bees and their
ways, could make more. Three weeks
after the idea struck him Jack had a
scow we'll loaded with bee-hives and
was moored to the levee of the lower
Mississippi, within easy scent of a
great orange grove, and wondering why
he had never had the sense to think out
the new system for himself.
The bees attended strictly to bust
ness; so did Jack, so long as there was
anything for him to do, yet he found
most of his time at his disposal and
nothing to do with it. At first, as he
still knew everything, he determined to
do missionary work and teach the ma
tives everything they needed to know.
They weren't a bit like New Hampshire
people and didn't do anything in the
way he had been taught to do it, which,
of course, was the only proper way. A
few endeavOrS in this direction taught
him a great deal, at much cost of pa
tence to the good-natured natives; he
speedily learned, too, that New Hamp-
shire dash and nervousness were en-
tirely out of place if he expected to
keep his health and temper, SO he
dropped back into his old habit of study
ing human nature. Not many people
live directly on the banks Of the Missis-
sippi, and the few who are there know
all about their neighbors. like the in
habitants of small neighborhoods else
where; so Jack soon heard all the Cos
sip Of whatever locality he and his
honey makers CHANGED to be visiting
for the week. The tales did not differ
much from those he had heard at home
ever since he was q boy; they could al
be traced back to the few sentiments
which underlie pretty much everything
that human nature does or has done
since the world began, but because the
dialect and surroundings were different
Jack soon determined, like every other
modern Yankee who had gone South, tc
write book about it.
There certainly were some differences,
however, in the people he now saw and
those from whom he came, and the one
which impressed Jack most forcibly was
that the women were superior to the