Chapter Ten: A Legacy and a Letter
Carl Owens jumped on his cart and swung around. Doc Daniel pulled Benny aside. "Ben, is that why you were crying when I came?" Doc Daniel asked in a whisper. "Jason Owens and his family really knew your father? It's too fantastic."
"It's true, though," Benny answered. "My dad gave Jason the little Bible he got when he graduated from seminary. He was always giving away Bibles. But that one was really special. It has all his notes in it. It was – really hard to see it again. We didn't know who he'd given it to."
"That must have been very hard for you," Doc Daniel said, squeezing Benny's shoulder.
"I wanted to rip it right out of his hands," Benny murmured. "We lost everything of my father's when the barge sank. Everything."
"Everything but the legacy of a fine father, a loving husband, and a great man of God," Doc Daniel smiled.
Benny looked up into Doc Daniel's eyes. "Doc Daniel, do you think Jason would mind if I went and read some of Jeremy's letter? I'll come down when his family gets here. I promise."
"We can manage to keep Jason occupied, I think," Doc Daniel chuckled. "Go on and read your letter. Take care of that knife first, though. "Benny pulled his knife out of the barn wall and shut it up in the Chinese case. He slipped the case into his jacket pocket. Doc Daniel spoke quickly to his son and Uncle Tom, and the three of them converged on Jason.
"How about another piece of birthday cake, Jason?" Doc Daniel invited. "I haven't had mine yet, and I hate to eat alone."
"That'd be swell!" Jason exclaimed.
Benny ran for the ladder around the side of the barn and threw himself into a pile of hay. Eagerly he opened the fat envelope and unfolded Jeremy's letter. Never had Jeremy written so many pages before. He wrote close and kind of untidy, and the pages were crammed with words. Obviously parts had been written and added to at many different times.
"Happy Birthday, Ben," Jeremy began. "I trust Dan will be able to give you this on your birthday, and I hope most fervently that your mother will allow you to accept the gift I have authorized Doc Daniel to give you.
"My days of using it are past, and I hope that you will be able to look on it as just a memento of our friendship and realize that it is never to be used lightly. Dan showed me the fine box he got for you to keep it in. I urge you to do so, and just take it out now and then and remember me, and how much I value your friendship. I am sorry that I did not know the date of your birthday, last year, and I am sure I will never forget it now that I do. It has associations that I need only to look in a mirror to recall. Thankfully there are few mirrors here to trouble me.
"I understand that you are very worried about my well-being and state of mind. I have not spoken much of those things, and I have asked Dan to respect my silence, thinking that to tell you all that goes on here and in my mind would cause you great distress, which I wanted to spare you.
"My other correspondents have given me to understand that I have only caused you more heartache and disappointment because I have held back from confiding in you. Forgive me, Ben, for that was the last thing I wished to do.
"I have told you that the food is bad, I suppose. A chain gang of men goes out and picks up all the garbage each day. Then they bring it back and we sort it. Whatever we can, we eat. The prisoners don't get any other food except a ration of stale bread and occasionally some type of castoff grain mash. I think it is stuff the horses refused.
"Bathing is permitted once a month. One bucket half full of water with a very harsh lye soap is provided. We usually work in a chain gang. Everybody has leg irons connected to a long chain. It is real togetherness. We are leased to different employers from time to time outside the prison. Sometimes we go to a farm, sometimes to a factory, always with at least a chain around our leg after we get there, fixing us close to some immovable object like a steel girder or a hay wagon.
"The work is hard -- very hard. We are given tasks no free man in his right mind would do. Once I was shackled to a fence post in a cattle chute and had to stop bovines with fine sharp horns rampaging through and hold them while a vet gave them some type of medical treatment. I had three partners. One was trampled to death. The vet told us to hurry and pull him out of the way lest the cattle injure themselves stumbling over him.
”I had to stand inside a hydraulic press when it was turned on and coming down on top of me and brush free some sharp metal shavings trapped in the sides before it squashed me. Remember that you asked to know all this.
One more incident I will relate to you. We are sent down into the sewers periodically to clear some blockage. If a guard doesn't think someone is working hard enough, or doesn't like his attitude, well, he can sling a chain about our neck and give a jerk so that we fall into the muck. Often guards will let us lie there until we are half-suffocated because our leg chains are caught on the rim of the trough and we can get no foothold to free ourselves.
"Now you understand why I did not speak of our treatment. It is not easy even to write it. I dread the effect it will have on you as you read it and know that it really happens to me and to a thousand other men day after day. Do not ask me anymore if I am all right. All right is a concept far from my mind just now.
"I cannot but thank God that so far I have not been crippled or even seriously injured in these work details. I thank God you are not here and I do not have to let you see me after such a day. God was merciful to you and to me to put me in this faraway place, for I believe it would have been much the same for me in Jefferson City. How ignorant I was to think I would want you to visit me.
"It is bad enough that Dan Connors drops in unannounced. He has seen far more than I would willingly trouble anybody I cared for to witness. Of course we are here to be punished. But there is such a daily unremitting round of pain and terror and exhaustion that men have died in the night simply because it freed them from having to face another day of the same.
"When we are in the prison we do all the cleaning and laundry and repairs to the facility. Guards can use their clubs or chains as they see fit. If you think I suffered at the hands of those amateurs in Jeff City, I submit to you the case of one poor devil beaten so badly he could not walk for a month.
"There are prisoners here who start fights. They want to keep strong, prove how tough they are, make the other prisoners afraid of them. They're brutal men, and the guards don't always show up in time. Sometimes on purpose.
"Now you know what you have been asking to know. I hope it is sufficient. I do not intend to take on the subject again. My stomach is roiling now to think that you must read this."
Indeed, Benny had to stop reading at this point. He took several deep breaths and looked out the hayloft window. Coming up the drive was the Owens family wagon. His family and the Connors hurried out to meet them. Benny stashed his letter between a beam and the wall of the barn. He checked to make sure his little lantern hung on the wall by the window so he could come back later and read by its light.
Benny's mother cried and laughed and hugged Mrs. Owens and all her children over and over. Mrs. Owens had seemed like such a stern, forbidding woman, bigger than her husband, heavy-boned and strong. Benny had seen her in town but hadn't known who she was. She cried as hard as Benny's mother and told how each of her children had sat on Pastor Jon's knee and heard the Word of God. Only the littlest had not been able to understand, and he had since been converted, too.
Benny smiled through his tears as Jason gave his testimony of how Pastor Jon had told him about his own dear boy and how he didn't want Jason to be lost any more than he would want his own son to refuse to heed God's call.
"That was enough for me," Jason said. "I didn't want Pastor Jon's boy, whoever he was, to have that wonderful smile of approval turned his way and not get one for myself. I never really thought I'd ever get to meet his son, or that he'd want to be my friend."
"Oh, Jason," Benny said with a weak laugh. "How could I not be your friend? You brought my father back to life for a day. I can see
now that what he lived and believed in keeps on living after him. I thought he was gone forever. But your family is here because of him. I'm so glad you came here. I'm so glad."
Dan Connors and his wife had to leave shortly after the Owenses arrived. The Owenses stayed until midnight. Uncle Tom wanted everyone to bed down in the house. Benny wanted to take the boys up into the loft and have them all sleep there. But Mr. Owens insisted they had cows to milk and a farm to take care of.
He wrung Doc Daniel's hand as they left. "Thank God you came, Doctor Connors," he said. "You'll be here for church on Sunday, won't you, Preacher?"
"My friend, I've been away too long," Doc Daniel laughed. "I'm planning to stay home awhile and disciple some very eager believers named Owens. All right?"
"All right!" Jason crowed, jumping up in the air. "Can I come over to Ben's tomorrow?"
"You have to muck out the barn tomorrow," his father reminded him. "That usually takes you half the day."
"I know! I'll do it fast," Jason insisted. "Now I got a reason to hurry."
"Maybe Ben don't want company again so quick," Mr. Owens ventured.
"I'd be glad to have Jason come," Benny grinned. "If it's all right with Mother and Uncle Tom, of course."
"Well, if you get all your work done," Uncle Tom said firmly.
"Please come, Jason," Benny's mother said. "You're more than welcome."
"Can I sleep in the hayloft tonight, Uncle Tom? Please?"
"Didn't finish that letter from Jeremy, did you?" Uncle Tom chuckled.
Benny ran up to the loft and grabbed his pillow and his new quilt. He ran out to the barn and settled back into the hay.
"Psst! Ben!" someone called. "Ben! It's me, Jason!"
Benny poked his head out of the loft. Jason scrambled up the ladder. He thrust something at Benny and scrambled back down. Benny saw him running down the road to catch up with the family wagon. Benny dug in the hay to find whatever it was that Jason had given him. He smiled when he touched his father's Bible. A note was tucked inside.
"My folks and I agreed we just couldn't keep this," Jason's scratchy writing said. "It's got to be about the only thing you've got of your father's. So here it is. Thank God we met today, Ben. And thank God for Pastor Jon. I'm gonna tell my dad about my knife. I hope he'll let me keep it 'cause a fellah needs a knife if he uses it right, not to scare away his friends. You got to tell me about this fellah Jeremy who give you that throwing knife. Thanks. Your friend, Jason."
Benny hugged his father's Bible to him. He opened it and spent some time reading verses and notes. At last he left the Bible open on his chest and pulled Jeremy's letter out again.
"I have written this letter over a period of two or three weeks because my free time is in truth somewhat scarce. I fear to go back and read what I wrote in the two weeks now past lest I tear it up and break my promise to disclose to you my life here. But now I shall soften my harsh beginning with an ending happier than I had any reason to hope for.
"Our prison has both a chaplain and a doctor. The chaplain has a hard row to hoe with us disheartened men. Anyway, he has asked that I be made his assistant. He comes every day, and I am charged with preparing the chapel and leading the singing. He has said he will want me to preach sometime. I am terrified at that prospect. But working for him has reduced my exposure to outside work detail by about half. I thank God for this blessing, for now I can serve Him and escape some of the hardships.
"Well, my blessings come on fast and furious. The prison doctor had need of an assistant as well. Somehow it has come to his attention that I wished to study medicine (I cannot but blame Dan Connors, or perhaps his very persuasive father) and he has grudgingly said he will take me on trial. If I please him I will not be on outside work detail much at all.
"But that petty consideration is of no consequence Ben. Look you! I am to receive pastoral and medical training just as I hoped. How the Lord does encourage us when we most have need of it. I am glad I can give you something to perk up your spirits since I have no doubt depressed them badly. I know mine are perked almost past bearing. Pray that I do well, Ben. It would mean so much to my future, however long I must be here, if I am more fit for His service when I emerge.
"God bless you, my boy, for your faithful letters to me through this grim time. Believe me, they comforted my soul and lighted my way when I was sure I could not go on. God bless your lovely mother, who had no reason to pity me, but who has shined her radiance in my direction most sweetly.
"Share this letter with her if you feel you must. But be sure to give her a kiss before you do. Say Mr. Carlisle hopes it will be taken in the spirit of a holy kiss as the Bible says and that she will not be offended. I will close now, hopeful for the first time that I will see you again, for Christ has lightened my stupid, stubborn heart and made me see that He is still good and great and all-powerful. Farewell."