sofa, as if he, too, felt the presence of
the god of sleep.

"Now we are ready," said my father, "and here is the paper written by
Aunt Hildy which she bade me read to you all, and whose instructions we
must obey to the letter, remembering how wise and good our kind friend
has ever been. It is written in the form of a letter," and he read the
following:

"My dear friends, I am writin' this as ef I was dead and you still in
the land of the livin', as we call it; I feel now as if when you read it
I shall be in the land of the livin', and you among them who feed mostly
on husks. I know by this stubbin pain in my side that I shall go to
sleep, and jest step over into Clary's room before long, and all that
ain't settled I am settlin' to-night, and to Mr. Minot's care I leave
these papers and this box. You have been good and true friends to me,
and I want to help you on a little in the doin' of good and perfect
work. When Silas left me alone he took with him little money. I don't
know what possessed him; but Satan, I guess, must have flung to the
winds the little self-respect he had. He took one boy off with him to be
a vagrant. Silas' father was a good man, and he left a good deal of
property to this son of his, and we had got along, in a worldly sense,
beautiful; so when, he went away he left considerable ready money and a
lot of land, and I've held on to it all. Sometimes I've thought one of
'em might come back and want some of it; but now I know they are dead.
From time to time I've sold the land, etc., and you see I've added to
what was left. I now propose to divide it between Emily and Louis, as
one, Jane North Turner and her husband, and John Jones."

As this name fell from my father's lips, John's dark eyes spoke volumes
and his broad chest heaved with emotion, but he sat perfectly erect,
with his arms folded, and I thought what a grand picture he made.

Matthias groaned:

"Oh, de good Lord ob Israel, what ways?" Aunt Peg gave vent to one of
her peculiar guttural sounds as father concluded the unfinished sentence
with the names of Ben, Hal and his good little wife.

"Now, you can't do a great deal with this money, but it will go a little
ways toward helpin' out. I believe there is just three thousand dollars,
and that figgers only six hundred dollars apiece. Now, ef Ben's
shoulder prevents him from workin', and he needs to have it, Halbert
must give him half of what I leave to him, and I know he'll do it. Ben
w