Benefits Forgot

Benefits Forgot, by Honoré
Willsie

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Title: Benefits Forgot A Story of Lincoln and Mother Love
Author: Honoré Willsie
Illustrator: Charles E. Cartwright
Release Date: July 31, 2006 [EBook #18951]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: "COME HERE AND SIT DOWN AND WRITE A
LETTER TO YOUR MOTHER!"--Page 74.]

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BENEFITS FORGOT
A Story Of Lincoln And Mother Love
BY HONORÉ WILLSIE
Author Of "Still Jim," "Lydia Of The Pines," Etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES E. CARTWRIGHT
Publishers
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
New York
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Copyright, 1917, by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I THE DONATION PARTY 1
II THE CIRCUIT RIDER 27
III WAR 45
IV MR. LINCOLN 63
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I
THE DONATION PARTY

[Illustration]
I
THE DONATION PARTY
Brother Meaker rose from his pew and looked at Jason appraisingly.
"I don't know, brethren," he said. "Of course, he's a growing boy. Just
turned twelve, didn't you say, ma'am?" Jason's mother nodded faintly
without looking up, and Brother Meaker went on. "As I said, he's a
growing boy, but he's dark and wiry. And I've always noted, the dark
wiry kind eat smaller than any other kind. I should take at least twelve
pounds of sugar off the allowance for the year and four gallon less of
molasses than you was calculatin' on."
He sat down and Sister Cantwell rose. She was a fat woman, famous in
the southern Ohio country for the lavish table she set.
"Short sweetening," she said in a thin high voice, "is dreadful high. I
said to Hiram yesterday that the last sugar loaf I bought was worth its
weight in silver. I should say, cut down on short sweetening. Long
sweetening is all right except for holidays."
Jason whispered to his mother, "What's long sweetening, mother?"
"They must mean molasses," she whispered in return, with a glance at
Jason's father, who sat at the far end of the pew reading his Bible as he
always did at this annual ordeal.
Jason looked from his mother's quiet, sensitive face, like yet so unlike
his own, to the bare pulpit of the little country church, then back at

Brother Ames, who was conducting the meeting. This annual
conference and the annual donation party were the black spots in
Jason's year. His mother, he suspected, suffered as he did: her face told
him that. Her tender lips, usually so wistful and eager, were at these
times thin and compressed. Her brown eyes, that except at times of
death or illness always held a remote twinkle, were inscrutable.
Jason's face was so like, yet already so unlike his mother's! The same
brown eyes, with the same twinkle, but tonight instead of being
inscrutable, boyishly hard. The same tender mouth, with tonight an
unboyish sardonic twist. What Jason's father's face might have said one
could not know, for it was hidden under a close-cropped brown beard.
He turned the leaves of his Bible composedly, looking up only as the
meeting reached a final triumphant conclusion with Brother Ames'
announcement:
"So, Brother Wilkins, there you are, a liberal allowance if I must say it.
Two hundred and fifty dollars for the year, with the usual donation
party to take place in the fall of the year."
Brother Wilkins, who was Jason's father, rose, bowed and said: "I thank
you, brethren. Let us pray!"
The fifty or sixty souls in the church knelt, and Jason's father, his eyes
closed, lifted his great bass voice in prayer:
"O God, You have led our feeble and trusting steps to this town of High
Hill, Ohio. You have put into the hearts and minds of these people, O
God, the purpose of feeding and clothing us. Whether they do it well or
ill, concerns them and You, O God, and not us. We are but Your
humble servants, doing Your divine bidding. Yet this is perhaps the
proper occasion, Our Heavenly Father, to thank You that You have sent
us but one child and that unlike Solomon, Your servant has but one
wife. And now, O God, bless these people in their giving. And make
me, in my solitary circuit riding in the hills and valleys a proper
mouthpiece of Your will. For Lord Jesus' sake, Amen."
There was a short pause after