Benefits Forgot Part 4

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.

"Haven't forgot how you loaned me those _Harper's Monthlies_ before you read 'em yourself," said Mr. Inchpin. "Anything I can do for you or your mother, let me know."

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 acc.u.mulated 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.

Jason grunted. "You keep him from biting or kicking and I'll do my share," he said.

"Pilgrim bite!" cried Jason's mother indignantly.

Again Jason grunted, working swiftly, with the skill of trained and accustomed fingers. The candle flickered on his cool young face, on his black hair and on his long, strong, surgeon's fingers. It flickered too on his mother's sweet lips, on her tired brown eyes and iron-gray hair.

It put high-lights on the cameo at her throat and made a grotesque shadow of her hoop-skirts on the stable wall.

Finally Jason straightened himself with a sigh and wiped his hands on a towel.

"That's a good job," he said. "Must be some bad spikes here or in the pasture fence to have given him that rip. I'll hunt them up tomorrow.--Get over there!"

This last to Pilgrim, who suddenly had put his head on Jason's shoulder with a soft nuzzling of his nose against the young doctor's cheek and a little whinny that was almost human.

"Why, Jason, he's thanking you!" cried his mother. "He'll never forget what you've done for him tonight."

Jason gave the horse a careless slap and started out the stable door.

"You'll be having it that he speaks Greek next," he said.

"You don't know him," replied Jason's mother. "This is the first time you ever saw him, remember. These last three years of your father's life he's been like one of the family." She followed Jason into the cottage.

"Often and often before your poor father died he said he'd never have been able to keep on with the circuit-riding and the preaching if he'd had to depend on any other horse than Pilgrim. That horse just knew father was forgetful. He wouldn't budge if father forgot the saddle-bags. When Pilgrim balked, father always knew he'd forgotten something and he'd go back for it. I'll have supper on by the time you've washed up, Jason."

The little stove that was set in the fireplace roared l.u.s.tily. The kettle was singing. The old yellow cat slept cozily in the wooden rocker on the patch-work cushion. All the furniture, so simple and worn, was as familiar to Jason as the back of his hand.

Jason washed at the bench in the corner, then sat down while his mother put the supper before him--fried mush, fried salt pork, tea and apple sauce.

"Well," said Jason soberly, "what are we going to do now, mother?

Father's gone and--"

His mother's trembling lips warned him to stop.

"It doesn't seem possible," she said, "that it's only a week since we laid him away."