The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1870-06-16
The Dollar.
BY GEORGE LIPPARD.

|
Death had struck bun even in the street
He was hurrylng t collect his last
months rent, and was on the verge o1
the miserable court where his tenant.
| herded together like beasts in their ken
Des-he was there with the hand book
| in his hand, when Death laid his hand
upon him.
He was carried home to his splendid
| mansion
He was laid upon a bed with satin
covellet The lawyer, the relations and
the preacher was sent for. All day long
he lay without speech, moving only his
right hihd, as though in the act of count
ing money.
At midnight he spoke.
He asked for dollar and they bro't
one IT, him, and, lean and gaunt, he sat
up IN his bed, and clutched it with the
gripr of death
\ shaded lamp stood on table neal
the sllken bed Its light fell family
around the splendid room, where chairs,
and carpets, and mirrors, silken bed and
lofty ceiling, all said Gold as plainly as
human lips can say it.
His hair and eyebrows were white, his
cheeks sunken, and his lips thin and
surrounded by wrinkles that Indicate the
pattern of avarice. AS he sat up in bed
with his neck barred, and the coverlet
wrapped about his lean frame, his white
hair and eyebrows contrasted strangely
with his wasted and wrinkled face-he
looked like ghost And there his life
was centered in the dollar which he
griped in his clenched fist.
His wife, pleasant faced matronly
woman, vas seated at the foot of the bed.
His son a, young man Of twenty-one,
dressed in the last touch of the fashion,
sat by the lawyer The lawyer sat by
the table, pen in hand, gold spectacles
on his nose. There was huge parch-
ment spread before him.
"Do you think he'll make will?"
asked the son.
Hardly conapus mentis yet" was the
whispered reply "Wait. He'll be
lucid after while"
My dear, said the wife, had not
better send Tor a preacher?
She lose and took her dying husband
by the hand, but he did not mind. His
eye was upon the dollar.
He was rich man. He owned pal
aces in Walnut and Chestnut streets, and
novels and courts in the outskirts. He
had iron mines in this state; copper
mines on the lake somewhere; he had
golden interests in California.-His name
was bright upon the records of twenty
banks-he owned stocks of all kinds he
had half dozen papers in his pay.
He knpw hut OOn prIyOp---f0 he in Il Inf
without the power to pay.
He knew but one virtue-to get money.
THAI crime he had never forgotten
this virtue he had never forgotten, in the
long way of thirty-five years.
To hunt down debtor, to distress a
tenant, to turn few thousands by a
sharp speculation-these were the main
achievements of his life.
He was good man-for every thousand
dollars which he wrung from the tenants
of his courts, or from the debtors who
writhed beneath his heels, he gave dol
lars to some benevolent institutions.
He was just mantle gaIlows and
the Jail found him faithful advocate.
And now he is dying man--see! AS
he lies upon the bed of death, with the
dollar in his clcnched hand.
Oh! holy Dollar, object of his life long
purpose, what comfort hast thou for him
in his pains of death !?
At length the dying man revived and
dictated his will Il was strange to see
the son, mother ana lawyer, muttering
together. and sometimes wrangling be side
the bed of death.--All the while the res-
tator chung to the dollar in his right
hand
While the will was being made, the
preacher came-even he who held the
PASTORAL charge of the great church,
whose pew doors bore sanity names on
silver plates, and whose sea IS groaned
beneath responsibility, brosdcloth and
satin
He came and said his prayers-decori-
ously and in measured words-but never
once did the dying man relax his hold of
the dollar.
Cant you see am going?" at length
said the rich man, turning frightened
look towards the preacher.
The preacher, whose cravat was of the
whitest, took a book with golden clasp
from marble table.
And he read:
And | say unto you. it is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of needle,
than for rich man to enter the King
dom of God"
"Who said these words-who? fairly
shrieked the dying man, shaking the
hand that held the dollar at the cid mans
head.
The preacher hastily turned over the
Leaf and did nor renIv
"Why did you never tell me this
before? Why did you never preach
from il as sat in your church? why,
why?"
The preacher did not reply, but turned
over another leaf But the dying man
would not be quoted: