OLD MR. ALVORD'S LAST WILL.
THE DESTRUCTIVE GREED OF GAIN—A WEIRD, WONDROUS TALE—"WHAT IF THEY BUT KNEW"—TELLING STORIES AWAY FROM HOME—REVELATIONS—AN OLD MAN OF THE HIGH MORAL TYPE—CURIOUS NOTION ABOUT THE SIZE OF A FAMILY; THE MYSTIC NUMBER THREE—PORTRAITS OF A FAMILY; A PERFECT WOMAN—DEATHS AND INTRIGUES—A "FAITHFUL SERVANT"—OLD WILLS AND NEW—LEGAL COMPLICATIONS—THE LAST WILL MISSING—A CRAFTY LAWYER—A THOROUGH SEARCH—A DIABOLICAL COURTSHIP, AND FIERCE STRUGGLE DURING THREE YEARS—A DETECTIVE AT LAST CALLED INTO THE MATTER—A PLOT LAID TO FOIL OLD BOYD, AN UNSCRUPULOUS LAWYER—DID IT SUCCEED?—THE READER PERMITTED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION FOR HIMSELF—A VITAL DISCOVERY—MORE PLOTTING—A BEAUTIFUL YOUNG LADY MAKES A DIVERSION IN THE PLANS—OLD ANDREW WILCOX'S FUNNY LETTERS SEARCHED, AND A TREASURE "FOUND" AMONG THEM—OLD BOYD'S CONSTERNATION—THE LAST WILL FINALLY CARRIED OUT—"NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE"—A FORTUNE TOO LARGE TO BE LAUGHED AT—A CUNNING WIFE LEADS HER SIMPLE HUSBAND A CURIOUS LIFE—A BIT OF COMFORT, PERHAPS.
That "the love of money is the root of all evil," hardly needed for its proper declaration a divine voice. The records of man's life and struggles in all ages, in peace and in war, through the fictitious "honesties" of business enterprises, or in the eccentric ways called crimes, declare most emphatically that the "great good" is "goods" or their equivalent in the "representatives of value" which we call money, in almost everybody's heart; and the sickening details of the struggles for it, with which the detective becomes familiar, are so multiplied, that one might almost write the history of current times, as well as of that of the past, in one phrase—"Money-getting!" "money-getting!" And the modes by which money is sought are almost as multiplied as the persons seeking.
The fierce quarrels between members of the same family,—an instance of which I have marked in my memorandum, to be presented in these pages if space permits,—and the devilish "greed of gain" which pursues a father, perhaps on his dying bed, and disturbs his last hour through the contentions of his loving children, quarrelling there, may be, with a step-mother, or somebody else equally "loved" by them, over the "goods and chattels" which the expiring man is expected to leave behind, have furnished matter for the satirist in all times; and most fit subjects are these for the satirist's and reformer's pen. They cannot be held up to too great execration.
The story which I am about to relate might, in its interesting details and phases, be readily made to fill a duodecimo volume of several hundred pages instead of the short article into which it is compressed, so peculiar were the characters, and so beautiful as well as painful the varied life of the chief person whom it regards. I find myself lingering over it, as now I turn over my diary and note-books, and recall it so vividly to mind, with the wish that I might, and with a half-formed resolve that I will at some time, put it in the form of an extended narrative, so thorough a portrayal of human nature in some of its best as well as worst aspects, would it prove.
I am frequently vexed that I may not use the actual names of the individuals who figure in these tales. How many a neighborhood, or how large an acquaintanceship with this or that character would be astonished, if they but knew as they read that the subjects of this or some other articles are still beings lingering in the flesh, and residing, perhaps, next door!
I was telling a story one night in a stage-coach which was full of passengers. I was more than two hundred miles away from my own home, and over eight hundred from the place of the chief scene in my story. The passengers had, most of them, been favoring each other with "yarns," of more or less truthfulness, but usually untrue, in some respects, to the actual experiences of life, and my turn came then. I chanced to call to mind an experience of mine more than ten years before. My story, I fancy, was of a more interesting kind than my fellow-travellers were wont to hear, for there was the profoundest silence on their part. As now and then the clouds which threatened a rain broke away, and revealed the moon, I noticed that an old man, sitting opposite me on the back seat, was all ears, all intent.
To make my story comprehensible in some parts, I had, in the early portion of it, entered into a minute personal, rather, physical description of the chief character of it, and a bad one. It proved that the old gentleman recognized the very man, though he himself, when at home, lived some fifty miles from him, and it further proved that what that tale revealed led on to a course of affairs in which several families were more or less involved, to their displeasure.
When we alighted, the old man took me aside, and whispered in my ear, "That was a fearful story you told us, but I knew it was all true, because I know the man that you called 'Jones.' His name is ——, and he resides in ——, and I am greatly obliged to you for unearthing one of his villanies. I can see now how he has accomplished others just as bad."