The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-03-14

exist with least discomfort upon the
irreducible minimum.
Ben didn't own the shack, but
there was nobody sufficiently inter-
ested in dispute his squatter's rights
to it, so all he had to supply
(since it was sunmer) was food;
but even so, that's something. They
squeezed out an extra day after
there was nothing left at all, and
then stared together and with
equal dismay at the necessity Of
more work for Ben.
They stared at it all day, while
they got hungrier and hungrier,
and the following day-perforce-
Ben returned to the marts.
He earned another fortnight's
idleness, and found it sweet, spent
in his adopted mothers company.
So sweet that he seriously consid-
cred the idea of thus using toll in
small quantities, right along, like
an epicurean, for the purpose of
improving the quality of his leisure.
Considered it, turned it this way
and that, and finally, with good
deal of inner violence, rejected it.
THEY starved a day longer this
Il time, heroically. That night mis-
bitterness and misery were made
audible by the small sounds of her
shifting and signing in the other
room.
All his life he had been free. Lots
of people praise freedom with their
lips and typewriters, but Ben had
gone cold and hungry in its service.
His devotion would have been at
tested 800 per cent pure by the
Bureau of Standards.
"Workin'," he said the next day,
bitterly. S even worse'n I thought
it was"
Mrs. Benjamin Brunswick Sr.
nodded her fiossy boudoir cap and
hitched her chair farther into her
newly acquired place in the sun.
Il never could understand it," she
said 1T don't seem right for folk
to spend their time workin'. Not to
me it don't. Why any dogs got the
bulge on 'em! If only had me
dollar or two put by!"
Forget i'll" Ben said and looked
at her with wave of emotion
deeper than anything he had felt
for years. What womani A woman
who, if she had had it, would have
coughed up money to save you, not
from death, which no man could es-
cape anyway and was, after all, re-
prieve from a world which never had
appreciated you, but from work,
which was the common curse,
though there were few with the CUTS
to admit it! For such woman Ben
would-even--Work.
LIE sighed, groaned, hoisted him
Il l. self to his great feet and said
so.
Mrs. Benz min Brunswick Sr. be-
gan to cry. Ben's newly awakened
capacity to feel touched a new high.
IF you hadn't taken me in," she
sobbed, her face working with such
genuine concern that Ben's began
to twist, too.
I'D have no talk like that from
the Pope, himselfl When I said
Mother it was what meant. I'm
on my way"
Blu the little old woman was SOB
bling Historically and il deadly
earnest. 1t took him long time
to calm her down. He could see
that something fundamental was
happening inside of her. She was
in fact, being born again.
At last she wiped her eyes,
Strengthened her cap and sat up as
one who says good-by to all that.
An odd CLINT of jubilation came into
her eyes. She seemed to swell with
Importance. She wagged her head
with sudden and vast significance.
She cooked it.
IT'D never "a done it," she said,
L. still shifting little and lean
ing forward dramatically, for me-
self. For more years n you've been
alvin I've been pinchin' it off
here an scroogin' an savin' there
an a-hidin' it. Carryin' it around
with me in that old shawl. If folks
had known I had it. Tits
been what I've lived for In the
bundle there, under the bed"
Well, Mrs. Benjamin Brunswick
Sr. had $986.54 in bills and coins of
many vintages, and staring at it
misty eyed and shaken to the deep
hearts core, Ben heard freedom
ring.
They've dwelt together paradise
cally ever since. She may not be
his physical mother, but Ben feels
that she is truly the mother of his
soul; and he, though he may not
be any earthly good otherwise, is
good SON