[or-roots] gentleness and tact

[DAVIESW739 at aol.com]

Oregon Pioneers never joked >?
I spose they never laughed  either ?

Not true Dan,
A few nights before we went away, a party of  neighbor boys came over  to bid 
us good bye. Mother set out buttermilk and johnny cakes. Two  or  three of 
the boys slipped out and after a while came in carrying a bee gum. They  had 
held it  over a shovel full of hot coals and tobacco till the bees were  all 
dead, so the gum was opened in  safety and the clear flakes of honey  were passed 
around.  
The frontier boys, to whom sweets were a rare delicacy,  ate it and laughed 
and laughed  at the joke on Mr. Collins, who then owned  our bees. He was said 
to be rather over careful of  what belonged to him,  so they thought it was a 
great lark. I remember that Father seemed to   enjoy the joke even more than 
they did. He ate the honey and chuckled to  himself, but Mother  refused to 
touch it, though she gave no reason at the  time. Mother was very pious. Most 
anyone  at all would have known that by  first looking at her. I guess Father was 
to, for the matter of that,  but  one would never in the world have suspected 
it by just seeing him or hearing him  laugh.  
Later, when the company had gone, Mother looked very  severe and frowning at 
Father,  said: "Daniel, I am surprised at you for  allowing those boys to take 
Mr. Collins' honey. You even  ate it and  laughed with the rest of them." 
Then Father laughed even louder than before.  He  laughed till the tears came and 
said: "why Polly, the boys did not know  it, but that was not Mr.  Collins' 
bee gum. It was the one that I had kept  for ourselves." That was my Fathers 
sense of  delicacy. The boys probably  chuckled for a long time over the joke 
they played on Mr. Collins I  am  quite sure they never learned from Father that 
they had sat by our own fireside  and had eaten  the honey that we were to 
take with us. 
Walt  Davies
Cooper Hollow Farm
Monmouth, OR 97361
503 623-0460 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20040608/713209c7/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: walt%20at%2055%20icon.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2892 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/or-roots/attachments/20040608/713209c7/attachment.jpg>