Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: "COME HERE AND SIT DOWN AND WRITE A LETTER TO YOUR MOTHER!"--Page 74.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ BENEFITS FORGOT A Story Of Lincoln And Mother Love BY HONORE WILLSIE Author Of "Still Jim," "Lydia Of The Pines," Etc. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHARLES E. CARTWRIGHT Publishers FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY New York ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright, 1917, by FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I THE DONATION PARTY 1 II THE CIRCUIT RIDER 27 III WAR 45 IV MR. LINCOLN 63 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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.