Benefits Forgot | Page 2

the rich voice stopped, then a few weak

"Amens" came from different corners of the church and Brother Ames,
jumping to his feet, exclaimed:
"Let us close the meeting by singing
'How tedious and tasteless the hours When Jesus no longer I see--'"
This ended Jason's first day at High Hill. The salary was small, even for
a Methodist circuit rider, in the decade before the Civil War. It was
smaller by fifty dollars than what they had been allowed the year before.
Yet, High Hill, as Mrs. Wilkins pointed out to Jason the next day, was
much more attractive than any town they had been in for years. There
was a good school, and the Ohio river-packet stopped twice a week,
and a Mr. Inchpin in the town was reported to be the owner of a
number of books. Jason's mother was an Eastern woman and
sometimes the loneliness and hardship of her life made her find solace
in what seemed to Jason inconsequential things. Still, he was glad of
the school, for he was a first-class student and already had decided to
take his father's and mother's advice that he study medicine. And the
packet, warping in twice a week, was, after all, something to which one
might look forward and Mr. Inchpin's books would be wonderful.
Jason was sure that the Ohio valley in which he had spent the whole of
his short life was the most beautiful spot in the world. The lovely green
heights rolling back into the Kentucky sky line, were, he thought, great
enough for David, whose cattle fed upon a thousand hills. The fine
headlands on the Ohio side, wooded, mysterious, were, he was sure,
clad in verdure like the utmost bound of the everlasting hills of Jacob.
And High Hill with its fifteen hundred souls was "a city, builded on a
hill that could not be laid."
For Jason was brought up on the Bible. His father believed that it ought
to be, outside of his school text books, his only literature. His mother,
with her Eastern traditions, thought otherwise. A Methodist circuit rider
before the Civil War moved every year, and every year Mrs. Wilkins
combed each new community for books. It was wonderful how she and
Jason scented them out.

They had been in High Hill about a week when Jason came panting
into the house late one afternoon. His father was writing a sermon in
the sitting room. Jason tip-toed into the kitchen, where his mother was
preparing supper.
"The packet's in, mother, and I carried a man's carpet bag up to the
hotel and look--what he gave me!"
His slender boyish brown hands fairly trembled as he held a torn and
soiled magazine toward his mother. She dropped the biscuit she was
molding and seized it.
"Harper's Monthly! O Jason dear, how wonderful! You shall read it
aloud to me after supper."
"It's prayer meeting night," said Jason in a sick voice.
His mother flushed a little. "So it is! My goodness, Jason! Print makes
a heathen of me and you're most as bad. You haven't fed the horse or
milked."
"So I won't get a look at it till tomorrow," cried Jason, bitterly.
Mrs. Wilkins glanced toward the closed door that led into the sitting
room. Then she looked at Jason's wide brown eyes, at the round-about
she had cut over from his father's old sermon coat, at the darned
stockings and the trousers that had belonged to the rich boy of the town
they had lived in the year before.
"Jason," she said, "you ought to get plenty of sleep because you're a
growing boy. But a thing like this won't happen for years
again--and--well, I've saved up several candle ends, hoping to get some
sewing done nights when your father was using the lamp. When you go
up to bed tonight, take those and read your magazine."
"But you ought to keep them," protested Jason.
"Not at all," exclaimed his mother, vigorously, "it's all for your

education. Run along now and milk."
So Jason reveled in his Harper's Monthly, and the next day as he wiped
the dishes for his mother, he produced his great idea.
"If I can earn the money, this summer, mother, can I subscribe to
Harper's Monthly for a year?"
"My goodness, Jason, it's five dollars and this is the first of August!
School begins in a month."
"I know all that," replied Jason impatiently, "but if I earn the money
can I have it for Harpers Monthly?"
"Of course you can. It's all for your education, my dear. I never forget
that."
A money paying job for a boy of twelve was a hard thing to find in
High Hill and Jason was late for supper that night. But his brown eyes