Lewistown gazette. [volume] (Lewistown, Pa.) 1843-1944, 1851-11-28
Ta { seer Ia1l { o1t 6.
THE DOLLAR.
BY GEORGE LIPPARD.


ways written as powerful and unexcep-
tionably, as in the following sketch
They brought him dollar.
He took it, cluched it in his long and
/ skinny fingers, tried It's sound against the
bed-post, and then gazed at it long and in
tently with his dull, eaden eyes.
That day, in the hurry of business,
/ Death had struck him, even in the street.
He was hurrying to collect the last months
| rent, and was on the verge Of the miser-
/ able court, where his tenants herded like
beasts in their kennels-hc was there with
handbook in his hand, when death laid
/ its hand upon him.
I lie was carried home to his splendid
mansion. He was laid upon bed with
satin coverlet. The lawyer, relations,
and the preacher was sent for. All day
long he lay without speech, moving only
: his right hand, as though in the act Of
counting money.
At midnight he spoke.
/ lie asked for dollar and they brought
one to him, and lean and gaunt, ne set up
in his death-bed, and clutched it with the
grip of death.
\ shaded lamp stood on the table near
the silken bed. Its light fell family
around the splendid room. where chairs,
carpets and mirrors, silken bed and lofty
ceiling, all said God as plainly as human
lips could say it.
His hair and eyebrows were white
His cheeks were sunken, and his lips thin
and surrounded by wrinkles that indicated
10 rADtfn nf 4 lr
bed with his neck barred and the siken
coverlet wrapped about his lean frame, his
white hair and eyebrows contrasted with
his wasted and wrinkled face, he looked
like 4 ghost. And there was life in his
leadcn eye-all that life was centred on
the dollar which he gripped in his fist.
His wife, pleasant faced matrony wo-
man, was seated at the foot of the bed
His son, young man of twenty-one dres-
sed in the last touch of fashion, sat by the
lawyer. The lawyer sat before the table,
pen in hand, and gold spectacIes on his
nose. There was a huge parchment
spread before him.
Do YOU think he'll make 4 will , asked
the son.
Hardly compos mentis yet was the
whispered reply. Wait, he'll be lucid
after a while
My dear said the wife, had | not
better send for preacher!'
She rose and took the dying husband
by the hand, but he did not mind His
eye was upon the dollar.
He was rich man. lie owned pala-
ces in Walnut and Chestnut streets, and
novels and courts, in the out skirts. lie
had iron mines i'll the State; copper mines
in the lake somewhere; he had golden IN
terests in California. His name was
bright upon the records of twenty banks:
he owned stock of all kinds; he bad half
dozen papers in his pay.
lie knew but one crime-i0 be in debt
5cithOUt Tie pOicer TO pay.
He knew but one yIrtue-tO get money.
The crime he had never forgotten-ths
virtue he had never forgotten, in the long
way Of thirty-fve years.
10 hunt down a debtor; to distress
tenant; to turn few additional thousands
by a sharp speculation-these were the
main achievements OF his life.
He was good man-his name was up
on a silver plate upon the pew door OF
velvet-cushioned church.
He was a benevolent man-lor every
thousand dollars which he wrung from the
tenants or the debtors who writhed be-
meath his heels, he gave ten dollars 10
some benevolent institution.
He was a Just man-the GalIows and
the Jail always found him faithful and
answering advocate.
And now he is dying man-see him
As he sits up in the bed of death, with
the dollar in his clenched hand.
Oh holy dollar, object of his lifelong
pursuit, what comfort hast thou for him
now in his pain of death!
At length the dying man revived and
dictated his will. 1t was strange TO see
the mother, son, and the lawyer muttering,
and sometimes wrangling beside the bed of
death. All the while the tcstator clutched
the dollar in his right hand.
While the will was being made, the
preacher came-even he who held the
pastoral charge of the good church, whose
pew doors bore sanity names on silver
plates, and whose seats on the Sabbath
day groaned beneath the weight of re-
spectablity, broadcloth and satin.
He came and said his pray ayers-decor-
ously and in measured words-but never
once did the dying man relax his hold of
the dollar.
Cant you read me something, say
quick, don't you see I'm gong? at length
said the rich man, turning a frightened
look toward the preacher.
The preacher, whose cravat was of the
whitest, took book with golden clasps