Chapter 29 - Page 2

had so long nursed his diseases and mitigated his sufferings, was
compelled to appear as a very insignificant and secondary person. Others
who stood in the same degree of consanguinity to the dying man, and two, a
brother and sister, who were even one degree closer, had _their_ claims,
and were by no means disposed to suffer them to be forgotten. Gladly would
poor Mary have prayed by her uncle's bed-side; but Parson Whittle had
assumed this solemn duty, it being deemed proper that one who had so long
tilled the office of deacon, should depart with a proper attention to the
usages of his meeting. Some of the relatives who had lately appeared, and
who were not so conversant with the state of things between the deacon and
his divine, complained among themselves that the latter made too many
ill-timed allusions to the pecuniary wants of the congregation; and that
he had, in particular, almost as much as asked the deacon to make a legacy
that would enable those who were to stay behind, to paint the
meeting-house, erect a new horse-shed, purchase some improved stoves, and
reseat the body of the building. These modest requests, it was
whispered--for all passed in whispers then--would consume not less than a
thousand dollars of the deacon's hard earnings; and the thing was
mentioned as a wrong done him who was about to descend into the grave,
where nought of earth could avail him in any way.

Close was the siege that was laid to Deacon Pratt, during the last week of
his life. Many were the hints given of the necessity of his making a will,
though the brother and sister, estimating their rights as the law
established them, said but little on the subject, and that little was
rather against the propriety of annoying a man, in their brother's
condition, with business of so perplexing a nature. The fact that these
important personages set their faces against the scheme had due weight,
and most of the relatives began to calculate the probable amount of their
respective shares under the law of distribution, as it stood in that day.
This excellent and surpassingly wise community of New York had not then
reached the pass of exceeding liberality towards which it is now so
rapidly tending. In that day, the debtor was not yet thought of, as the
creditor's next heir, and that plausible and impracticable desire of a
false philanthropy, which is termed the Homestead Exemption Law
--impracticable as to anything like a just and equitable exemption of
equal amount in all cases of indebtedness--was not yet dreamed of. New
York was then a sound and healthful community; making its mistakes,
doubtless, as men ever will err; but the control of things had not yet
passed into the hands of sheer political empirics, whose ignorance and
quackery