Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1901 — THE DILLEY BENEFIT. [ARTICLE]

THE DILLEY BENEFIT.

IHE Dilleys seemed born, to misfortune. How much of the “111 luck” that so steadily attended them was due to wn shiftlessness and lack of a sense is not for me to say; one could deny that the Dilere indolent and improvident, t they appeared to be childishly t of the value of money. When id money, which was seldom, ient it so foolishly that it was ; for their friends to sympaith them when they were penind their cupboard and pantry ire. tastes ran so largely to jewelry r. Dilley had been Jcnown to for a glass and brass breastpin ir-bobs” for Mrs. Dilley when ely needed shoes, and her best vas a faded calico. Likewise illey had been knowh to pay in imitation diamond and pe&rl r Mr. Dilley’s great unwashed hen he was almost barefooted, i one occasion she presented th a big gold “bosom-pin” for •t front when he had hardly a shirt to pin it to. to this uncurbed fondness for , the Dilley taste ran largely to photographs and plush albums, irrors and embroidered flowers lids thereof. Nothing seemed them greater pleasure than to r their pictures” in a group, le baby on Mrs. Dilley’s ample •rminius, the next in size, beiis father’s patched knees, and itte, Claudia, Reginald and .1 gracefully grouped around their parents. It was “like the Dilley luck,” the aeighbors said, when poor Mrs. Dilley’s garments caught fire when she ivas boiling soap in her back yard, and the result was that the six Dilley children were motherless within a jweek. The remembrance of this tragedy fwas sfill heavy upon their hearts when poor Mr. Dilley was brought home dead, having been killed by a tree he had felled in the woods near his home. “And there those six poor younguns ■were orphans, and not a change of clothes to their backs nor hardly any food In the house,” said the next neighbor of the Dilleys, who told this tale Ito me, “and not a cent for the future, ■and not one of them old enough to karn any money but Claudia, the oTd■est girl, and she only fifteen!” I The question what could or should f be done with the Dilleys afforded food for prolonged discussion. The immediate wants of the children were willingly provided for, and they remained In the shabby little house in which Ithey had lived. Claudia knew of but one relative of her father’s to whom Bhe could write regarding his death. This relative was her father’s brother, John Dilley, who lived in the Far (West. He had not been heard from for several years, but Claudia knew bis address, and she felt that It would be proper for her to Inform her Uncle John of his brother’s death. Ten days after Claudia’s pathetic little letter had gone on its way out over the Western plains, this philosophical and well-meant reply came to ber from her warm-hearted Western uncle, whose ignorance of grammar and orthography were more than atoned for by his generosity: “My Deer Neese:—l got your letter . eaying that your Father was ded. [ iWe’ve all got to go some time. If he | wasn’t prepaired he ought to have been. He was good-hearted. I was not suprised to hear that he didn’t leave no property. A body can’t very well leave what a body never had. ‘ Sour father wasn’t one of the accumulative kind. It wasn’t in him to be that way, and I guess he couldn’t Ibelp It. I ain t been able to lay up a grate amount, and I’ve six children of my oun to fetch up, but you are my oun brother’s children, and your Aunt Mary and me are willing to do what we can for you. I’xe got a.big farm out here, and room for all of you if you can get here. But money is scarce and I aint got any to send you. ‘Tf you kin sell your furniture and things, and get money to come on with we ll make you all welcome and give you plenty to eat and enough to wear and some schoolin’, and do the best we can by you. Let me know when you will start, and I’ll drive to town to meet you. So no more now from i “John Dilley.” ' When the contents of this letter became known in the little town where the orphans lived, the opinion was quickly formed that the Dilley children should by all means be sent to their Uncle John, and he was highly for his generosity In being willing to take “the whole tribe of them.” But how to get them to him was the next question. The entire household possessions of the Dilleys, (With the family jewelry ajd 1 graph albums included, would not I have sold for S2O. *

It was Thomas Jefferson Briggs who conceived the idea of the Dilley benefit. Thomas possessed great fertility of ideas, although he was but twelve years old; and as his grandmother, with whom he lived, said, he was “small for his size.” Some boys in Melville of ten years were larger than Thomas, but none were more ready with expedients. One day, when the discussion about the Dilleys was at full tide, Thomas said to Miss Jane Crane, who was talking about the matter to his grandmother: “S’pose we get up a benefit for them?” “A benefit?” said Miss Jane. “Yes,” replied Thomas. “You know they got up a benefit for the brass band last spring, and made most SIOO. Maybe they could make as much for the Dilleys.” “The very thing!” exclaimed Miss Jane, clapping her small, thin hands together. “How lovely of you to think of it, Thomas, dear!” It annoyed Thomas to have Miss Jane call him “dear,” and he had a boy’s honest contempt for anything savoring of gush. “A benefit entertainment for the Dilleys will be simply charming!” said Miss Jane. “We haven’t had any kind of an entertainment in town for ages! And every one will be so ready to volunteer for such a good cause that we can get up a lovely program! I have two new songs I would be willing to sing, and I could recite something. And perhaps we could get up a little play.” “Oh, don’t go to have any play-act-ing, or lots of us church people won’t patronize the benefit,” said old Mrs. Briggs, who had very decided convictions regarding such matters, and who was opposed to anything savoring of the theatrical. “Perhaps it would be best not to attempt a play,” said Miss Jane, “for we shall want to have the entertainment free from anything the most conscientious wouldn’t feel free to patronize. But we simply must carry out Thomas Jefferson’s lovely idea. I know that It will take everywhere.” In fact, the suggestion of a benefit for the Dilleys in the town hall of Melville met with general hearty approval. Thomas Jefferson himself was not in the-least averse to taking part in the proposed benefit Indeed, his willingness and even eagerness to appear In public gave his grandmother no little concern, for she thought that she saw in tendency toward “play-act-ing,” and she frequently declared that she would rather have him become a garbage gatherer than to have him the “biggest play-actor on earth." Thomas did not share these views, but he said little about them to his grandmother. He was, however, a wilful boy, and not easily moved when he had made up his mind to do a thing. He had visited some cousins In the large town of Kingston a short time before he proposed the benefit for the Dilleys. While In Kingston he had atamateur minstrel show, and had come home eager to imitate some of the performances he had seen. From the moment the Dilley benefit was planned Thomas was determined to daze the little town of Melville. He was fond of dramatic effect, and he was determined to keep every one in ignorance of the exact nature of his contribution to the program. “I’ll tell you what you do,” he said to Miss Jane Crane, when she asked him if he would not speak a piece like “The Polish Boy,” or “Bingen on the Rhine.” “I tell you what you do. You just put on the program, ‘Surprise Number,’ and don’t say who It’s going to be by or what it Is going to be, and that’ll give them something to wonder about.” “Oh, how nice!” said Miss Jane. “And I know that we can depend on you to give us something perfectly lovely. You are a dear, anyhow!” Thomas Jefferson winced, but was too polite to give expression to his pent-up feeling. The patronage given the Dilley benefit was all that could be desired, since every seat in the house was sold and every foot of standing-room taken. Sympathy for the Dilleys, combined with a desire to break in on the monotony of life In Melville, sent nearly every resident to the town hall on the evening of the benefit. The Dilleys were there in a row of seats reserved for them, and Grandmother Briggs, having been assured that there would not be any “theatrical goings-on” in Jhe program, was an interested spectator. It was her conviction that Thomas Jefferson had learned a new and acceptable piece entitled, "Advice to a Boy,” that she had long wished him to recite at school—a prose composition of great length, written by some one who had evidently quite forgotten his own boyhood. Eager interest was manifest In the faces and actions of the audience when the “Surprise Number" yra. s reached

on the program. No one knew what it was to be, nor by whom It was to Le given. The curtains were parted, and there suddenly glided upon the stage a dancing, whirling figure in somewhat short and filmy pink and white tarlatan skirts and a black bodice laced with pink, with bare arms akimbo. The dancing figure piroutted around and around the stage, the curls of the very palpable yellow wig bobbing up and down and her tinsel ornaments tinkling as she whirled around. ‘’lf that ain’t scandalous!” ejaculated Grandmother Briggs to the lady sitting beside her. “Who in the land can the brazen creature be? She ought to be put right out!” “Why, don’t you really know who it is?” asked the lady. “Of course I don’t! I don’t associate with such characters!” “Why, Grandma Briggs, that is your Thomas Jefferson!” “Hey? What?” “It is! See the two Drewe girls! How they are laughing! ‘They made his clothes for him and helped get him up that way. They think it is great fun. And you really didn’t know that it was your Thomas Jefferson? How funny!” . Grandmother Briggs readjusted her glasses and leaned ‘forward, her dim old eyes flashing and her wrinkled hand pressed to her heaviSg chest. A moment later a tall old lady stepped firmly down a side aisle, her head erect, her lips tightly compressed, her fingers clenched in the palms of her hands, and a look of fierce wrath and determination on her somewhat wrinkled face. A door led from the end of the aisle to the platform, and Grandmother Briggs disappeared within this doorway. The next moment she was seen coming from between the gaudily painted wings of the stage. Thomas Jefferson was unaware of , her presence on the stage until she had grasped him firmly by the wrist with one hand while she snatched off his poorly constructed wig with the other and flung It across the row of lamps that served as footlights. Then she gave his ears a sound slap, and said, “You come along with me, you—you—you play-actin’ thing!” Too dismayed top words or resistance, Thomas Jefferson suffered himself to be led from the stage, while the audience screamed with laughter over the great “Surprise Number” of the program. Before the laughter had died away the danseuse and. his grandmother were going down a back stairway of the hall, and Grandmother Briggs was saying, “Go ( right home, sir! Of all the performances I ever see! Don’t you look purty? Oh, I’ll settle with you!”

The exact nature of this settlement was never made public, and it was not much recompense to Thomas Jefferson to know that he had helped to make the Dilley benefit such a success that the six young Dilleys went on their westward way the next week with a purse of money amply filled.« They are men and women now, and Thomas Jefferson has children of his own. His perceptions are clearer and truer than they once were, and he frankly admits that his grandmother served him right.—J. L. Harbour, in Youth’s Companion.