CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF Satinsky Lincoln Collection Cornell University Library PS 3525.0759B4 Benefits forgotja story of Lincoln and I m 3 1924 021 802 107 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021802107 BENEFITS FORGOT "COME HERE AND SIT DOWN AND WRITE A LETTER. TO YOUR MOTHER!"— Pag, 74. BENEFITS FORGOT A STORY OF LINCOLN AND MOTHER LOVE BY HONORE WILLSIE AUTHOR 0» "STILL JIB," "LYDLt 07 THE PTNX8," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BV CHARLES E. CARTWRIGBT PUBLISHERS FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY NEW YORK Copyright, 1917, by Frederick A. Stokes Company All rights reserved, including thai of translation into foreign languages Printed in the .United .States .of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I The Donation Party i II The Circuit Rider 27 III War 45 IV Mr. Lincoln 63 I THE DONATION PARTY I THE DONATION PARTY BROTHER MEAKER rose from his pew and looked at Jason appraisingly. "I don't know, brethern," 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 [i] BENEFITS FORGOT eat smaller than any other kind. I should take at least twelve pounds of sugar off the al- lowance 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 sweet- ening 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, sen- sitive face, like yet so unlike his own, to the bare pulpit of the little country [2] THE DONATION PARTY church, then back at Brother Ames, who was conducting the meeting. This annual con- ference 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 hps, usually so wistful and eager, were at these times thin and compressed. Her brown eyes, that ex- cept 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 sar- donic twist. \Miat Jason's father's face might have said one could not know, for it was hid- den 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 : [3] BENEFITS FORGOT "So, Brother Wilkins, there you are, liberal allowance if I must say it. Two h dred and fifty dollars for the year, with usual donation party to take place in the of the year." Brother Wilkins, who was Jason's fatl rose, bowed and said: "I thank you, bre ren. Let us pray!" The fifty or sixty souls in the church kn and Jason's father, his eyes closed, lifted great bass voice in prayer: "O God, You have led our feeble i trusting steps to this town of High Hill, 01 You have put into the hearts and minds these people, O God, the purpose of feed and clothing us. Whether they do it well ill, concerns them and you, O God, and us. We are but Your humble servants, do Your divine bidding. Yet this is perhaps proper occasion, Our Heavenly Father, thank You that You have sent us but child and that unlike Solomon, Your serv Ul THE DONATION PARTY 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 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 at- tractive than any town they had been in for years. There was a good school, and the Ohio river-packet stopped twice a week, and [5] BENEFITS FORGOT a Mr. Inchpin in the town was reported t be the owner of a number of books. Jason 1 mother was an Eastern woman and some times the loneliness and hardship of her Iif made her find solace in what seemed to Jaso inconsequential things. Still, he was glad c the school, for he was a first-class student an already had decided to take his father's an mother's advice that he study medicine. An the packet, warping in twice a week, was, afte all, something to which one might look forwar and Mr. Inchpin's books would be wonderfu Jason was sure that the Ohio valley i which he had spent the whole of his short Iii was the most beautiful spot in the work The lovely green heights rolling back into th Kentucky sky line, were, he thought, gres enough for David, whose cattle fed upon thousand hills. The fine headlands on th Ohio side, wooded, mysterious, were, he we sure, clad in verdure like the utmost boun of the everlasting hills of Jacob. And Hig [6] THE DONATION PARTY 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, out- side of his school text books, his only litera- ture. His mother, with her Eastern tradi- tions, thought otherwise. A Methodist cir- cuit rider before the Civil War moved every year, and every year Mrs. Wilkins combed each new community for books. It was won- derful 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 pre- paring 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 maga- [7] BENEFITS FORGOT zine 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 fa- ther'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 [8] THE DONATION PARTY ^ 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, vigor- ously, "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 impa- [9] BENEFITS FORGOT tiently, "but if I earn the money can I have it for Harper's Monthly?" "Of course you can. It's all for your edu- cation, 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 were shining with triumph when he slid into his seat and held out his bowl for his evening meal of mush and milk. "I've got a job," he said. "A job?" queried his father. He smiled a little at Jason's mother. "Yes, sir. Mr. Inchpin is having a new barn built on the hill back of his house. The brook runs at the foot of it and I'm going to haul gravel and sand and water up to the building site. It'll take about a month. He provides the horse and wagon." "And how much will he pay you?" asked Mrs. Wilkins. [10J THE DONATION PARTY "He says he can't tell till he's through. But I'm going to ask him for five dollars." Jason's father looked amused and a little troubled. "Jason, I hope you're not too in- terested in Mammon. But I must say I'm glad to see you have your mother's energy." "Or your father's," said Mrs. Wilkins, smiling into the blue eyes opposite hers. "Nobody can say that a circuit rider lacks energy." And so during the hot August days, Jason toiled on Mr. Inchpin's new barn, never once visiting the swimming hole in the brook, never once heeding the long-drawn invitation of the cicada to loll under the trees with one of Mr. Inchpin's books, never once breaking away when the toot of the packet reverber- ated among the hills. "He's a fine lad," Mr. Inchpin told Jason's father. "I never have seen such determina- tion in a little fellow." ["] BENEFITS FORGOT Brother Wilkins looked gratified, but when he repeated the little compliment to Jason's mother he added, "I don't believe I under- stand Jason altogether." "I do," said Mrs. Wilkins, stoutly. August came to an end with cool nights and shorter days and Mr. Inchpin's barn was finished of a Saturday evening. He called Jason into the house, into the library where there were bound volumes of Godey's Lady's Book and Blackwood, and handed him three paper dollars. "There you are, my man. I'd intended to give you only two. But you've done well, by ginger, so here's three dollars." Jason looked up at him dumbly, mumbled something, stuffed the bills into his trousers pocket and bolted for home. He burst in on his mother in the kitchen, buried his face against her bosom and sobbed. "I can't have it after all! He only gave me three dollars! I can't have it! And now [12] THE DONATION PARTY I'll never know how that story 'Bleak House' ended." Jason's father came into the kitchen, has- tily: "What in the world — " "Jason! Jason! don't sob so!" cried Mrs. Wilkins. "We'll raise the rest of the money some way. I'll find it. Hush, dear, hush! Mercy, the mush is burning!" Jason's father took the boy's grimy blis- tered hand, such a strong slender hand and so like his mother's, and sitting down in the kitchen chair, he pulled Jason to him. "Tell me, Jason," he urged gently, "what money?" Jason still torn with occasional sobs, man- aged to tell the story. "Harper's Monthly," exclaimed Brother Wil- kins. "Dear! Dear! I had hoped you'd give the money to a foreign mission, Jason." "Foreign mission!" cried Jason's mother. "Well, I guess not! Jason's education is [13] BENEFITS FORGOT going to be taken care of before the heathen." "But how'II we get the extra dollars?" asked Brother Wilkins, helplessly. "I'll manage," replied Jason's mother, her gentle voice a little louder than usual. "Then let us eat supper," said Jason's fa- ther, clearing his throat for grace. Jason's mother sold a girlhood treasure, a little silver-tipped hair-pin, to the storekeep- er's wife, the following Monday, for two dol- lars, and the jubilant Jason exchanged the single bills for a single note. The note was cut in two and sent in separate letters to New York, this being the before the war method of safeguarding loss of money in the mail. There was a period of several weeks of waiting during which Jason met every mail. Then a third letter was sent by Jason's mother, asking why the delay, and telling Jason's little story. Jason met the return packet, his heart now [14] THE DONATION PARTY high, now low. He had met so many futile packets since the first of September. But this time there was a letter explaining that but one-half of the note had arrived in New York, but that on faith, the editors were sending the back numbers of the magazine requested and that the rest of the year's subscription would follow. And Jason never did know whether or not the second half of the note arrived. And there they were, a fat pile of maga- zines! Jason clasped them in his arms and rushed home with them. A tag tail of boys followed him and by nightfall most of the town knew that Jason Wilkins had four numbers of Harper's Monthly on hand. Jason was out milking the cow when Mr. Inchpin arrived. "Heard Jason had some new magazines in hand. Don't s'pose you could lend me a few, over night?" Jason's mother was in the kitchen. It was [15] BENEFITS FORGOT donation party night and she had been cook- ing all day in preparation. "Surely, surely," said Jason's father, pick- ing up the pile of magazines. "Jason can't get at them before the end of the week. Take them and welcome." Mr. Inchpin rode away. Jason came in with the milk pail and the family sat down to a hasty supper. "Won't I have a minute of time to look at my magazines, mother?" asked Jason. "O, I hate donation parties!" "Jason!" thundered his father. "Would you show ingratitude to God? And the books are not here anyway. I loaned them to Mr. Inchpin." "Father!" "O Ethan!" Brother Wilkins' eyes were steel gray, in- stead of blue. "Jason can read his Bible until the end of the week. His ingratitude deserves punishment." [16] THE DONATION PARTY Jason rushed from the table and flung him- self sobbing into the hay loft. His mother found him there a few moments later. "I know, dear! I know! It's hard. But father doesn't love books as you and I do, so he doesn't understand. And you must hurry and get ready for the party." "I don't want the donation party, I want my magazines," sobbed Jason. "I know. But life seldom, so very seldom, gives us what we want, dear heart. Just be thankful that you will be happy at the end of the week and come and help mother with the party." As donation parties go, this one was a huge success. Fully a hundred people attended it. They played games, they sang hymns, they ate a month's provisions and Mrs. Wilkins' chance of a new dress in the cake and coffee she provided. They left behind them a pile of potatoes and apples that filled two barrels and a heap of old clothing that [17] BENEFITS FORGOT Jason, candle in hand, turned over with his foot. "There's Billy Ames' striped pants," he grumbled. "Every time his mother licked him into wearing 'em, I know he prayed I'd get 'em, the ugly beasts, and I have. And there's seven old patched shirts. I suppose I'll get the tails sewed together into school shirts for me and there's Old Mrs. Arley's plush dress — I suppose poor mother'II have to fix that up and wear it to church. Why don't they give stuff" father'II have to wear, too? I wonder why a minister's supposed to be so much better than his wife or son." "What's that you're saying, Jason?" asked his father sharply as he brought the little oil lamp from the sitting room into the kitchen. Mrs. Wilkins followed. This was a detest- able job, the sorting of the donation debris, and was best gotten through with, at once. Jason, shading the candle light from his eyes, [18] THE DONATION PARTY with one slender hand, looked at his father belligerently. "I was saying," he said, "that it was too bad you don't have to wear some of the old rags sometimes, then you'd know how mother and I feel about donation parties." There was absolute silence for a moment in the little kitchen. A late October cricket chirped somewhere. Then, "O Jason!" gasped his mother. The boy was only twelve, but he had been bred in a difficult school and was old for his years. He looked again at the heaps of cast- off clothing on the floor and his gorge rose within him. "I tell you," he cried, before his father could speak, "that I'll never wear another donation party pair of pants. No, nor a shirt-tail shirt, either. I'm through with having the boys make fun of me. I'll earn my own clothes every summer and I'll earn mother's too." [19] BENEFITS FORGOT "You'll do nothing of the sort, sir," thun- dered Jason's father, his great bass voice ris- ing as it did in revival meetings. "You'll do nothing but wear donation clothes as long as you're under my roof. I've long noted your tendency to vanity and mammon. To my prayers, I shall begin to add stout measures." Jason threw back his head, a finely shaped head it was with good breadth between the eyes. "I tell you, sir, I'm through with donation pants. If folks don't think enough of the religion you preach to pay you for it I'd — I'd advise you to get another religion." Under his beard, Ethan Wilkins went white, but not so white as Jason's mother. But she spoke quietly. "Jason, apologize to your father at once." "I couldn't accept an apology now," said the minister. "I shall have to pray to get my mind into shape. In the meantime Jason shall be punished for this. Not until every- [20] THE DONATION PARTY one in the town who desires to read his Har- per's Monthlies has done so, can Jason touch them." "O father, not that," cried Jason. "I'll apologize! I'll wear the pants! Why, it would be Christmas before I'd see them again!" "I can't accept your apology now. Neither your spirit nor mine is right. And I cannot retract. Your punishment must stand." Jason was all child now. "Mother," he cried, "don't let him! Don't let him!" Mrs. Wilkins' lips quivered. For a mo- ment she could not speak. Then with an inscrutable look into her husband's eyes she said: "You must obey your father, Jason. You have been very wicked." Jason put down his candle and sobbed. "I know it. But I'll be good. Let me have my magazines. They're mine. I paid for them." "No!" roared the minister. "Go to bed, [21] BENEFITS FORGOT sir, and see to it that you pray for a better heart." Jason's sobs sounded through the little house long after his father and mother had gone to bed. The minister sighed and turned restlessly. "Why was I given such a rebellious son, do you suppose?" he asked finally. "Perhaps God hopes it'll make you have a better understanding of children," replied Mrs. Wilkins. "Christ said that unless you became like one of them you could not enter the kingdom." There was another silence with Jason's sobs growing fainter, then, "But he was wicked, Mary, and he deserved punishment." "But not such a punishment. Of course, I had to support you, no matter what I thought. But O Ethan, Ethan, it's so easy to kill the fineness in a proud and sensitive heart like Jason's." "Nevertheless," returned the minister, [22] THE DONATION PARTY "when he spurns the giving hand of God, for- giveness is God's, not mine. We'll discuss it no more." Nor was the matter discussed again. Jason appeared at breakfast, with dark rings about his eyes, after having done his chores, as usual. Once, it seemed to his mother that he looked at her with a gaze half wondering, half hurt, as if she had failed him when his trust and need had been greatest. But he said nothing and she hoped that her mind had suggested what was in her aching heart and that Jason's was only a child's hurt that would soon heal. He never again asked for the magazines. On Christmas morning his father placed them, tattered and marred, from their many Iendings, beside his plate. Jason did not take them when he left the table and later on his mother carried them up to his room. Whether he read them or not, she did not know. But she was glad to see him begin [23] BENEFITS FORGOT again to watch for the packet and read the cur- rent numbers as they arrived. She dyed Billy Ames' striped pants in wal- nut juice and they really looked very well. Jason wore them without comment as he did the shirts she fashioned for him from many shirt tails. And in the spring they left High Hill for a valley town. [24] II THE CIRCUIT RIDER II THE CIRCUIT RIDER THE years sped on with unbelievable swiftness as they are very prone to do after the corner into the teens is turned. Jason worked every summer, but he did not offer to buy his mother a dress nor did [2?] BENEFITS FORGOT he buy himself either clothing or books. He put all he earned by toward his course in medicine. When he was a little fellow, his mother had given him a lacquered sewing box that had belonged to her French mother. It had proved an admirable treasure box for childish hoardings. Jason, the summer he was thirteen, cleared it out and put into it his summer earnings, ten dollars. With his newly acquired reticence, he did not speak of the box, nor did he mention the extra bills, quarters and dollars that appeared there from time to time. The little hoard grew slowly, very slowly, in spite of these anonymous additions — it grew as slowly as the years sped rapidly, it seemed to Jason's mother. Jason must have been sixteen, the summer he went with his father on one of the Sunday circuit trips. He never had been on one be- fore. But it had been decided that he was to begin his medical studies in the fall. He was [28 J THE CIRCUIT RIDER to be apprenticed to a doctor in Baltimore and his mother was anxious for father and son to draw together if possible before the son went into the world. Not that Jason and the minister quarreled. But there never had been the understanding between the two that except for the unfortunate magazine episode, always had existed between Jason and his mother. The trip lay in the hills of West Virginia. Brother Wilkins rode his old horse, Charley, a handsome gray. Jason rode an old brown mare, borrowed from a parishioner for the trip. Mrs. Wilkins, standing in the door, watched the two ride off together with a thrill of pride. Jason was almost as tall in the sad- dle as his father. He had shot up amazingly of late. The minister was getting very gray. He had been late in his thirties when he mar- ried. But he sat a horse as though bred to the saddle and Old Charley was a beauty. 1 29 J BENEFITS FORGOT Brother Wilkins was very fond of horses and was a good judge of horse flesh. Sometimes Mrs. Wilkins had thought, that if Ethan had not chosen to be a Methodist minister he would have made a first-class country squire. She watched the two out of sight down the valley road, then with a little sigh turned back to the empty home. Jason, though always a little self-conscious when alone with his father, was delighted with the idea of the trip. They crossed the Ohio on the ferry and rode rapidly into the West Virginia hills. The minister made a great effort to be entertaining and Jason was aston- ished at his father's intimate knowledge of the countryside. "I don't see how you remember all the places, father," he said at noon, when the minister had turned to a side road to find a farmer whom he wished to greet. "I had this circuit years ago before you [30] THE CIRCUIT RIDER were born, my boy. I know the people inti- mately." "Don't you get tired of it?" asked Jason, suddenly. "Tired of saving souls?" returned his fa- ther. "Do you think you'll ever get tired of saving bodies?" "O that's different," answered the boy. "You've got something to take hold of, with a body." "And the body ceases to exist when the soul departs. Never forget that, my boy." "But you work so hard," insisted Jason, "and you get so little for it. I don't mean money alone," flushing as if at some mem- ory," but it doesn't seem as if the people care. They'll take all they can get out of each min- ister as he comes along, and then forget him." Brother Wilkins looked at Jason, thought- fully. "Sixteen is very young, Jason. I'm afraid you were born carnal minded. I pray every night of my life that as you grow older, [31] BENEFITS FORGOT you'll grow toward Christ and not away from Him." Again Jason flushed uncomfortably and a silence fell that lasted until they reached the remote hill settlement where service was to be held that night. The settlement consisted of a log church, surrounded by a scattered handful of log houses, each already with its tiny glow of light, for night comes early in the hills. The two had eaten a cold lunch in the saddles, for church service would begin as soon as they arrived. There were twenty-five or thirty people in the rough little church. They crowded round Brother Wilkins enthusiastically when he en- tered and he called them all by name as he shook hands with them. Jason slid into a back seat. His father mounted to the pulpit. "Let us open by singing ' How tedious and tasteless the hours When Jesus no longer I see — ' " The old familiar tune! Jason wondered [32] THE CIRCUIT RIDER how many meetings his father had opened with it. The audience sang it with a will. In fact with too much will. A group of young men on the rear seat opposite Jason sang with unnecessary fervor, quite drowning out the female voices in the congregation. Jason saw his father, his face heavily shad- owed in the candle-light, glance askance at the rear seat. "Let us pray," said Brother Wilkins. There was a rustle as the congregation knelt. "O God, I have come to You again in this mountain place after many years and many wanderings. I thank You for giving me this privilege. I have greeted old friends who have not forgotten me and who all these years have remembered You and Christ, Your only begotten Son. Tonight, O Heavenly Father, I have brought with me to this sacred fold my own one Iamb that he might see how sacred and how great is Your power. Look on him tonight, O Supreme Master, and mark [33] BENEFITS FORGOT him for Your own. And remember, that if the young men in the rear seat plan any dis- turbance tonight, O Heavenly Father, that the arm of Thy priest is strong and the soul of Thy servant is resolute. For Jesus Christ's sake, Amen." The boom of "Amens" from the back seat was tremendous. Brother Wilkins, rising after his prayer, looked at the four young men for a long moment, over his glasses. Then he said: " Let us sing 'From Greenland's icy mountains To India's coral strands.' " This was sung with tremendous vim, and the minister began his sermon. Jason's fa- ther was a good preacher. His vocabulary was rich and his ideas those of a thinking man whose religion was a passion. But the young men on the rear seat were unimpressed. One of them snored. Brother Wilkins stopped his sermon. [34] THE CIRCUIT RIDER "Be silent, ye sons of Satan," he thun- dered. There was silence and he took up the thread of his talk. A low cat call interrupted him. The minister stopped and slipped off his coat, folding it carefully as he laid it on his desk. It was old and the seams would not stand strain. He rolled up his cuffs as he descended from the pulpit, the congregation watching him spell-bound. Jason had seen his father in action before and was deeply embarrassed but not surprised. Brother Wilkins strode up to the pew where the offenders sat and seized by the ear the largest of the group, a hulk of twenty-one or so, larger than the minister. He led the young man into the aisle and reached up and boxed his ears, with the sound of impact of a club on an empty barrel. "Now leave this house of God," roared the minister. The young fellow sneaked out the door. Brother Wilkins turned back to the pew. [35] BENEFITS FORGOT "Don't you tech me or I'll brain ye," cried the youth who was about Brother Wilkins' own size. "Hah!" snorted the minister. There was the sound of blows, a quick scuffling of feet and the second offender was booted out of the door. The remaining two made a quick and unassisted exit. Breathing a little heav- ily, Brother V.Hkins returned to his sermon; and to his hypnotized and immensely regaled congregation it seemed that the rest of his preaching was as from one inspired by God. Jason sat brooding deeply. Something within him revolted at the spectacle of his father descending from the pulpit to beat re- calcitrant members of his congregation. An old and familiar sense of shame enveloped him, and he was thankful when once again df»rlcnp