encouragement and help. Edward Mills had once applied to the Prisoner’s
Friend Society for a situation, when in dire need, but the question,
“Have you been a prisoner?” made brief work of his case.
While all these things were going on, Edward Mills had been
quietly making head against adversity. He was still poor, but was
in receipt of a steady and sufficient salary, as the respected
and trusted cashier of a bank. George Benton never came near him,
and was never heard to inquire about him. George got to indulging
in long absences from the town; there were ill reports about him,
but nothing definite.
One winter’s night some masked burglars forced their way into the bank,
and found Edward Mills there alone. They commanded him to reveal
the “combination,” so that they could get into the safe. He refused.
They threatened his life. He said his employers trusted him,
and he could not be traitor to that trust. He could die, if he must,
but while he lived he would be faithful; he would not yield up
the “combination.” The burglars killed him.
The detectives hunted down the criminals; the chief one proved
to be George Benton. A wide sympathy was felt for the widow and
orphans of the dead man, and all the newspapers in the land begged
that all the banks in the land would testify their appreciation
of the fidelity and heroism of the murdered cashier by coming
forward with a generous contribution of money in aid of his family,
now bereft of support. The result was a mass of solid cash amounting
to upward of five hundred dollars–an average of nearly three-eights
of a cent for each bank in the Union. The cashier’s own bank
testified its gratitude by endeavoring to show (but humiliatingly
failed in it) that the peerless servant’s accounts were not square,
and that he himself had knocked his brains out with a bludgeon
to escape detection and punishment.
George Benton was arraigned for trial. Then everybody seemed to
forget the widow and orphans in their solicitude for poor George.
Everything that money and influence could do was done to save him,
but it all failed; he was sentenced to death. Straightway the
Governor was besieged with petitions for commutation or pardon;
they were brought by tearful young girls; by sorrowful old maids;
by deputations of pathetic widows; by shoals of impressive orphans.
But no, the Governor–for once–would not yield.
Now George Benton experienced religion. The glad news flew all around.
From that time forth his cell was always full of girls and women and
fresh flowers; all the day long there was prayer, and hymn-singing,
and thanksgiving, and homilies, and tears, with never an interruption,
except an occasional five-minute intermission for refreshments.
This sort of thing continued up to the very gallows, and George
Benton went proudly home, in the black cap, before a wailing
audience of the sweetest and best that the region could produce.
His grave had fresh flowers on it every day, for a while,
and the head-stone bore these words, under a hand pointing aloft:
“He has fought the good fight.”
The brave cashier’s head-stone has this inscription: “Be pure,
honest, sober, industrious, considerate, and you will never–”
Nobody knows who gave the order to leave it that way, but it was
so given.
The cashier’s family are in stringent circumstances, now, it is said;
but no matter; a lot of appreciative people, who were not willing
that an act so brave and true as his should go unrewarded,
have collected forty-two thousand dollars–and built a Memorial
Church with it.
***
THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE
Chapter I
In the morning of life came a good fairy with her basket, and said:
“Here are gifts. Take one, leave the others. And be wary,
chose wisely; oh, choose wisely! for only one of them is valuable.”
The gifts were five: Fame, Love, Riches, Pleasure, Death.
The youth said, eagerly:
“There is no need to consider”; and he chose Pleasure.
He went out into the world and sought out the pleasures that youth
delights in. But each in its turn was short-lived and disappointing,
vain and empty; and each, departing, mocked him. In the end he said: