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Read Ebook: Benefits Forgot: A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love by Morrow Honor Cartwright Charles E Illustrator
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Ebook has 167 lines and 8833 words, and 4 pages
e the horses to graze."
They ate their supper by candle-light after their hostess had cooked the mush in a kettle hanging from the crane. Brother Wilkins had a violent choking fit during the meal and Sister Clark pounded him on the back, apologizing as she did so for her familiarity with the minister.
Jason slept profoundly on his share of the shake-down that night, and at dawn, after more mush, they were up and away.
Twice on this day, Sunday, Brother Wilkins held service in the mountains and it was nine o'clock at night when they started toward the Ohio again. It was not until they had reached the river at dawn and had roused the ferryman that the minister recovered from his Sunday abstraction.
"Did you have a pleasant trip, Jason?" he asked as they led the horses into the boat.
"Yes, father," answered Jason dutifully.
Brother Wilkins looked at the boy, as if he were beholding him from a new angle.
"You don't look as much like your dear mother as you did in your childhood, my boy. Sometimes--I wonder--Jason, do you think this life has been too hard on your mother?"
"Yes, sir, I do. It's hard on a boy, why shouldn't it be doubly hard on a woman?"
The minister sighed. "Your reply is hardly polite, Jason, though I suppose my question merited it." Then with sudden heat: "Never mistake this cold frankness of yours for courage, my son. It takes more courage usually to be courteous than to be impolite. Did you notice that I coughed violently yesterday evening at Sister Clark's?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, the cause of it was this. She went down to the spring and fetched a pail of water for the mush. When I was eating my helping, I felt a lump in my mouth. But the old lady had her eye on me every minute for fear I wouldn't enjoy the frugal meal, so I could only investigate with my tongue. I found that she had cooked a little bit of a frog in the mush. Now, Jason, if she had discovered that she never would have recovered from the mortification. The only time in her life the minister stopped with her. So, though it made me choke, I swallowed it. That, sir, is my idea of courtesy. I wish you not to forget it."
Jason's cool, speculative young gaze was on his father's face as he answered:
"I understand, father."
The minister turned away. "No, you don't. I doubt if you ever do." And he did not speak again until they reached home.
WAR
WAR
At first, he did not ask his father and mother for help. He did all sorts of odd chores to pay his way. But as he progressed in his profession, he had less and less time for earning his up-keep and had finally to write home for money. His mother always answered his letters and she never failed to send him money when he asked for it. How she managed it, Jason never asked. Perhaps he was ashamed to know.
In all these four years he did not come home. He would have liked to but the trip was prohibitively expensive.
Late in the fall of 1861, he received a letter from his mother containing a ten-dollar bill. It was a short letter. "Your father can't live more than a week. Come at once."
Jason put his head down on that letter and sobbed, then dried his eyes and sought the doctor, who loaned him the rest of the money needed for the trip.
The minister's circuit had swung him round again to High Hill. Jason disembarked from the packet late one November afternoon, carrying his carpet bag. Even in November, High Hill was beautiful. Through his sadness, Jason again felt the thrill of the giant headlands, the thousand hills of his boyish imaginings.
There was the same little cottage, more weather-beaten than he had remembered it. His mother was waiting for him at the door. The four years had changed her, yet she seemed to Jason more beautiful than his mental picture of her had been.
She kissed him with trembling lips. "He's still with us," she whispered. "I'm sure he waited for you."
"What is the matter with him?" asked Jason, huskily, as he deposited his carpet bag on the sitting-room table.
"Lung fever. He took a bad cold a month ago coming home from West Virginia in the rain. He was absent-minded, you know. If it hadn't been for Pilgrim, I don't think he'd ever got here."
"Pilgrim?" asked Jason, warming his hands at the fire.
"Surely I've written you about Pilgrim. Father bought him soon after you left. He's the wisest horse that ever lived. If you're warm, now, Jason, come to your father."
He followed her into the bedroom which opened off the kitchen. His father lay on the feather bed, his eyes closed. O how worn--O how changed! Young Jason was hardened to suffering and death. He had not realized that to the sickness and death of one's own, nothing can harden us. He stood breathing hard while his mother stooped over the bed.
"Ethan," she said softly, "our boy is here."
Brother Wilkins opened his eyes and smiled faintly. He tried to say something and Jason sprang to take his hand.
"Oh, he wants to speak to you and can't. O my poor dear! O Ethan, my dearest."
Jason's mother broke down. Jason put his finger on his father's wrist.
After a long moment, "Mother, he's gone," he whispered.
After the funeral, Jason wandered about the village for a day or so, trying to plan for his mother's future and his own. All the townspeople were kind to him.
The two had met in Hardwich's store, which was also the post office and the evening club for the males of High Hill. Jason had dropped in to post a letter.
A tall scraggly man joined in. "Your father was the best preacher in Ohio. We was all glad when he got back here."
"He had the gift of prayer," said an old man, in the back of the store.
There was a silence which Jason struggled in vain to break.
Then a young fellow who carried a buggy whip and smoked a cigar said, "How does the doctoring go, Jason?"
"Well, thanks," returned Jason, looking at the young fellow, intently. It was Billy Ames, he of the striped pants.
Back through Jason's heart, until now strangely softened by the happenings of the past few days, surged the accumulated bitterness of his poverty-stricken youth. He turned abruptly and left the store.
His mother was watching for him, anxiously. "Jason, Pilgrim had an accident. He's got a frightful cut on his right fore shoulder. He must have got caught on a nail somehow."
"Let's have a look at him," said Jason.
The big gray was standing stolidly in his stall. Mrs. Wilkins held the candle while Jason examined him. On the right fore shoulder was a great three-cornered tear from which the skin hung in a bloody fold.
"I'll have to sew it up." Jason was all surgeon now. "Do you think he'll stand still for us?"
"Stand still," replied Jason's mother, indignantly. "Why, he'll know exactly what you are doing, and why."
"All right then. You get me some clean rags and a darning-needle and I'll get the rest of the things I'll need."
In a few moments the operation was well in hand.
Pilgrim kept his ears back and his eyes on his mistress. He breathed heavily, but otherwise he did not stir. He was a large horse, with a small, intelligent head and a mighty chest. Jason's mother held the candle with one hand while she stroked the big gray's nose with the other.
"Be careful, Jason, do!" she said softly.
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