Every one assented that he was the most proper person, for all knew he was the individual the surrogate would be the most likely to appoint.
"I have never set down the deacon's property as anything like what common report makes it," resumed Mr. Job Pratt; "though I do suppose it will fully reach ten thousand dollars."
"La!" exclaimed a female cousin, and a widow, who had expectations of her own, "I'd always thought Deacon Pratt worth forty or fifty thousand dollars! Ten thousand dollars won't make much for each of us, divided up among so many folks!"
"The division will not be so very great, Mrs. Martin," returned Mr. Job, "as it will be confined to the next of kin and their representatives. Unless a will should be found--and, by all I can learn, there is none"--emphasizing the last word with point--"unless a will be found, the whole estate, real and personal, must be divided into just five shares; which, accordin' to my calculation, would make about two thousand dollars a share. No great fortin, to be sure; though a comfortable addition to small means. The deacon was cluss (Anglice, close); yes, he was cluss--all the Pratts are a little given to be cluss; but I don't know that they are any the worse for it. It is well to be curful (careful) of one's means, which are a trust given to us by Divine Providence."
In this manner did Mr. Job Pratt often quiet his conscience for being as "curful" of his own as of other person's assets. Divine Providence, according to his morality, made it as much a duty to transfer the dollar that was in his neighbour's pocket to his own, as to watch it vigilantly after the transposition has been effected.
"A body should be curful, as you say, sir," returned the Widow Martin; "and for that reason I should like to know if there isn't a will. I know the deacon set store by me, and I can hardly think he has departed for another world without bethinking him of his cousin Jenny, and of her widowhood."
"I'm afraid he has, Mrs. Martin--really afraid he has. I can hear of no will. The doctor says he doubts if the deacon could ever muster courage to write anything about his own death, and that he has never heard of any will. I understand Mary, that she has no knowledge of any will; and I do not know where else to turn, in order to inquire. Rev. Mr. Whittle thinks there is a will, I ought to say."
"There must be a will," returned the parson, who was on the ground again early, and on this very errand; "I feel certain of that from the many conversations I have held with the deceased. It is not a month since I spoke to him of divers repairs that were necessary to each and all of the parish buildings, including the parsonage. He agreed to every word I said--admitted that we could not get on another winter without a new horse-shed; and that the east end of the parsonage ought to be shingled this coming summer."
"All of which may be; very true, parson, without the deacon's making a will," quietly, and we may now add patiently, observed Mr. Job.
"I don't think so," returned the minister, with a warmth that might have been deemed indiscreet, did it not relate to the horse-shed, the parsonage, and the meeting-house, all of which were public property, rather than to anything in which he had a more direct legal interest. "A pious member of the church would hardly hold out the hopes that Deacon Pratt has held out to me, for more than two years without meaning to make his words good in the end. I think all will agree with me in that opinion."