Benefits Forgot Part 7

Anger and mortification were ill inspirations for letter-writing, but under Lincoln's burning eyes Jason seized a pen and wrote his mother a stilted note. Lincoln paced the floor, pausing now and again to look over Jason's shoulder.

"Address it and give it to me," said the President. "I'll see that it gets to her." Then, his stern voice rising a little: "And now, Jason Wilkins, as long as you are in the army, you write to your mother once a week. If I have reason to correct you on the matter again, I'll have you court-martialed."

Jason rose and handed the letter to the President, then stood, angry and silent, awaiting further orders. Abraham Lincoln took another turn or two up and down the room. Then he paused before the window and looked from it a long, long time. Finally he turned to Jason.

"My boy," he said gently, "there's no finer quality in the world than grat.i.tude. There is nothing a man can have in his heart so mean, so low as ingrat.i.tude. Even a dog appreciates a kindness, never forgets a soft word, or a bone. To my mind, the n.o.blest holiday in the world is Thanksgiving. And, next the Creator, there is no one the holiday should be dedicated to as much as to mothers."

Again Lincoln paused, and looked from the boyish face of the young surgeon out of the window at the bleak November skies, and Lincoln said to Jason, with G.o.d knows what tragedy of memory in his lonely heart:

"Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thou dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot."

Another pause. "You may go, my boy." And Lincoln shook hands with Jason, who stumbled from the room, his mind a chaos of resentment and anger. He made his way down Pennsylvania Avenue, pausing as two army officers rode up to a hotel and dismounted, leaving their horses.

Something about the big gray that one of the officers rode seemed vaguely familiar to the young doctor. The gray turned his small, intelligent head toward Jason, then with a sudden soft whinny, laid his head on Jason's shoulder and nuzzled his cheek gently. Jason looked at the right fore shoulder. A three-cornered scar was there. Jason and Old Pilgrim never had met but once, and yet--Jason was little more than a boy. Suddenly he threw his arms around Old Pilgrim's neck, and sobbed into the silky mane. Pa.s.sers-by glanced curiously and then went on.

Washington was full of tears those days.

Pilgrim whinnied and waited patiently. Finally Jason dried his eyes, then stood in thought. The officer who had ridden Pilgrim came out at last. Jason saluted.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Captain, I'd like to buy that horse from you."

The captain laughed. "There are a number of others like you."

"No, but let me tell you about him, Captain. Give me ten minutes. I'm Dr. Wilkins of ---- Hospital."

"O yes, I know of your work. What's the story, Doctor?"

Jason told Pilgrim's history. "She gave him up for me and now I've found him," he finished. "I want to buy him back, get a furlough and take him home to her, myself. I've been saving my money."

"You may have him for just what I paid for him, Doctor," said the captain, who was considerably Jason's senior. "Tell your mother I wish my own mother were living and that I do this in her memory."

"Thank you, sir," said Jason.

A week later Jason led Pilgrim out of the freight car in which he had traveled from Washington to a railway station twenty-five miles from home. The river packets were not running and this was the nearest station to High Hill. It was noon and cold. Jason mounted and started south briskly and once more the Ohio valley opened up before him.

It seemed to Jason that he was seeing the hills for absolutely the first time. And yet that could not be, for back with the first sight of the distant river came all his old boyish reverence for the headlands. The last time he had ridden horseback in the hills had been in the West Virginia circuit, with his father.

For the first time since his interview with the President, Jason began to think of his father. All his newly awakened sense of grat.i.tude had been centered on his mother. Did he then owe his father nothing?

It took courage, it took nerve, it took stomach to patch together the b.l.o.o.d.y wrecks on the field of battle. It had taken tenacity to an ideal to starve and toil for his profession as he had done in Baltimore.

Whence had come these qualities to Jason? He thought once more of his father on that trip on the West Virginian circuit, of the boys expelled from the church, of Sister Clark, of his own sense of mortification and his own contempt. And he dropped his head on his breast with a groan.

And so as the sun set, Pilgrim with the scar on his right fore shoulder and Jason with the scar on his soul that only remorse implants there, stopped before the cottage in High Hill. And through the window, Jason's mother saw them. She rushed to the door and Jason, dismounting, ran up to her, and dropping on his knees, threw his arms about her waist and sobbed against her bosom:

"O mother! O mother! Forgive me! I didn't realize. I didn't know!" Just as many, many sons have done before, and just as many more will do, please G.o.d, as long as love and grat.i.tude endure.