Glenn Clark - The Man Who Talks With the Flowers

The world has been poorer because there has not been available in book form an authentic biography of this greatest Negro of modern times, if not of all times. This little book does not pretend to meet this need completely but it does perform one service which few stories of Dr. Carver up till now have attempted to perform. While it includes all the most important events of his outer life, it gives especial attention to interpreting the inner soul of the man and revealing the spiritual processes by which his remarkable discoveries were made possible. Among other things, it tells the secret of his power of talking to the flowers and letting the flowers talk to him.

One of the most unique spiritual friendships of the world is the friendship existing between George Washington Carver and the author of this little book. Neither one ever undertakes a project of importance without taking the other one in spirit with him into his inner workshop. Every one who reads this book and who catches its spirit is invited to become a member of their little spiritual family. The authors chief purpose in writing this book was that all who read it might share some of the strength and inspiration which he has obtained through his intimate friendship with the man who talks with the flowers.

Start Publishing LLC

Copyright 2012 by Start Publishing LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Start Publishing eBook edition October 2012

Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN 978-1-62793-335-3

BY GLENN CLARK

I smiled at the way Jim wore his fedora. Something about his hair, possibly something under his hair, prevented a hat from ever sitting straight on Jim Hardwicks head. It always stuck out at a debonair angle. His broad shoulders, energetic step and serious Spartan face suggested a football playerwhich he ardently had been more than an ordained preacher of the gospelwhich he ardently was now. The moment he began to speak with that soft Virginia tang of his, there awoke romantic echoes in every youthful heart within hearing distance. It was like following a quarry over fascinating terrain to listen for one hour to Jim Hardwick lead young men back to Christ. It was like picking ones way down a gunflint trail toward inviting sunsets when Jim began speaking of the power of prayer. Everywhere he went he left changed lives behind him. I rarely have met a man, in all my going and coming across the continent, who could inspire young men and women who were earnestly seeking God, like Jim could.

Naturally I asked Jim one day how he came by this hidden power of his.

From an old Negro in Alabama, was his instant reply.

An old Negro! I exclaimed.

It was the most amazing experience in my life, he continued. Have you ever heard of George Washington Carver of Tuskegee? One day he came to the town where I lived and gave an address on his discoveries of the peanut. I went to the lecture expecting to learn science and came away knowing more about prayer than I had ever learned in the theological schools. And to cap the climax, when the old gentleman was leaving the hall he turned to me, where I stood transfixed and inspired, and said, I want you to be one of my boys. That was the way it began.

You must have felt honored by his selecting you out from the rest of the audience that way.

No, drawled Jim, just the opposite. It came very nearly spoiling the lecture. My grandfathers were owners of slaves. I came naturally by a strong southern prejudice against the Negro. For a nigger to assume the right of adopting me into his familyeven his spiritual family, as in this casewas brazen effrontery to my pride. I recoiled from it.

So I went home and tried to remove Dr. Carver entirely out of my mind. But try as I would I could not erase the effect of the lecture. A few evenings later when I seriously needed help, almost unconsciously I found myself turning in thought to this simple old scientist who had found God in the hills and fields, and instantly it seemed that his spirit filled that room. And his spirit was white, mind you, as white as any saint in heaven. A peace entered me, and my problems fell away. Since then I have found that merely by turning in thought to that dear old gentleman creates an atmosphere about me in which God can come very, very near to me. That is why God is as close to me as He is now.

So that was the source of Jims power.

The following year Jim brought Howard Frazier to a summer Camp which I was directing. Soon I became aware of the sweet spiritual quality in Howard. I soon learned that he too derived his inspiration from Dr. Carver and also had been admitted into his inner spiritual family. Since then there hardly was a year when I did not meet one or more of Dr. Carvers boys. The weaving and interweaving of his influence upon my life through these friends of his continued throughout many years, until it finally awoke in me a great desire to see this great spiritual saint whose influence spread far beyond his little town of Tuskegee. But as this privilege seemed to be indefinitely postponed, I sat down one day and wrote him a letter, instead.

By return mail I received a letter saying, I was praying that you would write to me when your letter came. From that moment I knew that I too was one of Dr. Carvers boys.

It so happened that a few weeks after receiving this letter, I was called east to give a series of talks to a group of people in Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdicks church. I wrote to Dr. Carver to pray that God should speak through me. I was on the train when the letter reached him, but I knew the hour and the minute that it reached him. The whole car suddenly was flooded with a celestial light, and I knew that God was near me. God certainly went with me on that trip, and spoke through me when the time came. This experience redoubled my determination to see Dr. Carver if it could possibly be arranged.

But it was not till the summer of 1935 that this dream came to be a reality.

I have arranged for a Camp Farthest Out to be held in the South, wrote Jim, in which you and Dr. Carver are to be the only leaders. It is to be a camp led by laymen. I think a camp led by a scientist, and a teacher of literature, one a Negro, one a white, one from the North, one from the South, both seeking the same God by different roads, should present a wonderful opportunity. Can you come?

Could I come! I would mortgage my house and pay my own way to come, if there was no other way. In some such emphatic language I replied to Jim.

But in spite of Jims enthusiasm, the Camp was destined not to be. In the first place, it seemed that few people in the South knew me or if they did, no one cared to hear me; in the second place, many people in the South may have been prejudiced against coming to a camp where their chief leader was to be a Negro. But even if only seven or eight should come it would be satisfactory to me. Jim did not share my feeling. He wrote that unless twenty-five had registered for it two weeks before it was to start he would cancel the camp. So one day I received a telegram from Jim saying that as only eight had registered for the camp up to that date, he had wired each of these eight that the camp would not be held.

I was terribly disappointed. Not at the failure of the camp, but because of losing my chance to meet Dr. Carver.

I am very sorry he called it off, I said to my wife. If there were only eight registered now, it means there would have been at least twenty or twenty-five when the camp started. And Jim knows very well that I would be willing to pay my own fare there and back. I am not going to this camp to meet expensesI am going to meet a great soul. After a little pause I said, emphatically, I am sure that we shall receive another wire tomorrow telling me to come. For