The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1857-10-30
THE DYING MISER.

lie TOOK u anu OiusS"cu " III nis iVuS ehiu-
nv fingers, tried its sound against the bed
post, and gazed on 1t long and intently with
his dull, leaden eye. .a
That day, in he hurry Of business, Death
had struck him, even in the street. He was
hurrying to collect the last month'srent and
was on the verge of the miserable court where
his tenants herded like beasts in their ken
nels; he was there with hand book in his
hand when death laid his hand upon him.
He was carried home to his splendid man.
sion. He was upon bed with a satin cover
let. The lawyer, the relations and the preach
er were 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.
He asked for dollar and they brought one
to him, and, lean and gaunt, he sat up in his
bed, and clutched it with the grip Of death.
A shaded lamp stood on the table near the
slken bed. Its light fell family around the
splendid room, where chair and carpets, and
mirrors, silken bed and lofty ceiling, oil said,
Gold as plain rs human lips can say it.
His hair and eyebrows were white, his
cheeks sunken, and his lips thin and surround
ed by wrinkles that indicate the pattern of
Avarice. As he set up in bed with his neck
barred, and the silken coverlet wrapped about
his lean frame, his white hair and eyebrows
contrasted with his wasted and wrinkied face,
he looked like ghost. And there his life
was centered, in the dollar which he gripped
in his clinched fist.
His wife, a pleasant faced matronly woman,
was seated at the foot Of the bed. His son, a
young man of twenty.one, dressed ID the last
touch of fashion, sat by the lawyer. The
lawyer set by the table, pen in hand, and gold
spectacles on his nose. There was huge
parchment spread before him.
Do you think he'll make will? asked the
son.
Hardly compos mentis yet, was the whis-
pered reply. Wait. He'll be lucid after a
while.
My dear said the wife, had | not better
send for n preacher?
She rose and took her dying husband by
the hand, but he did not mind. His eyes
were upon the dollar.
He was a rich man. He owned palaces in
Walnut and Chestnut streets and novels and
courts in the outskirts. He had iron mines
in this State; copper mines on the lake some.
where; he had golden interests in California.
His name was bright upon the records of
twenty banks; he owned stock of all kinds; he
had half dozen papers in his pay.
lie new but one virtue, to get money.
That crime he had never forgotten, in the
long way Of thiry-five yeare.
To hunt down debtor, to distress ten
ant, to turn few additional thousands by a
sharp speculation; these were the main
achievements of life.
He was good man; his name was upon
the silver plate upon the pew door of velvet
cushioned church.
He was benevolent man; for every thou
sand dollars which he wrung from the tenants
of his courts, or from the debtors who writh-
ed beneath his heels, he gave ten dollars to
some benevolent institution.
He was just man; the galows and the
jail always found him faithful and unswerv-
ing advocate.
And now he is dying man; see him, as he
sits upon the bed Of death, with the dollar in
his clinched hand.
o! holy dollar, object Of his lifelong pur.
suit, what comfort hast thou for him now in
his pain of death?
At last the dying man revived and dictated
his will 1t was strange to see the mother
and son and lawyer muttering, sometimes
wranging, beside the bed Of death. All the
while the testator clutched the dollar in his
right hand.
While the will was being made the preach.
er came; even he who held the pastoral charge
of his great church whose pew doors bore
sanity names on silver plates, and whose
seats on Sabbath day groaned beneath the
weight of respeetability, broadcloih and satin.
He came and said his prayers, decorously
and in measured words, but never once did the
dying man relax his hold of the dollar.
Can't you see I'm dying! at length said the
rich man, turning frightened look towards
the preacher.
The preacher, whose cravat was of the
whitest, took book with golden clasp
from marble table.
And he read
And say unto you, it is easier for camel
to go through the eye of needle, than for a
rich man to enter the kingdom of God.
Who said these words-wno, who's fairly
shrieked the dying man. shaking the hand
which clinched the dollar at the preacher s
head.
The preacher hastily turned over the leaf
and did not reply.
Why did you never tell me Of this before
Why did you never preach from it as set in
your church. Why--why!
The preacher did not reply, but turned over
Another leaf. But the dying man would not
be quieted:
Aud It is easier for camel TO 60 through
the eve of needle thnn for rich man to