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“I know, I know you do, poor boy, but your poor, old, miserable, wretched uncle don’t deserve it.”

“Don’t mind that, dear uncle,” says Lev. “It’s my duty, and I’ll do it.”

“Good boy, good boy; your poor, old, miserable uncle will be grateful–we’ll see.”

“I know that–I feel sure he will, dear Uncle Joe–and that’s enough, all I ask.”

“And if he don’t–poor, miserable old creature,–if he don’t pay you, the Lord will, Levi!”

“And that will be all that’s needed, Uncle Joe,” says the humbugging nephew. And so they went, Lev not only waiting on the old man with the tender and faithful care of a good Samaritan, but out of his own slender resources ministering to the old man’s especial comfort in many ways and matters which Uncle Joe would have seen him hanged and quartered before he would in a like manner done likewise. But the end came–the old fellow held on toughly; he never died until Lev’s patience, hope and slender income were quite threadbare; so he at last went off the handle–Lev buried him and mourned the dispensation in true Kilkenny fashion.

Lev Smith now awaited the settlement of Uncle Gunter’s affairs in grief and solicitude. Another party also awaited the upshot of the matter, with due solemnity and expectation, and that party was Polly Williams, Lev’s “intended,” and her poor and miserly dad and marm, who knew Lev Smith, as they said, was a lazy, lolloping sort of a feller, but sure to get all that his poor, miserable uncle was worth in the world, and therefore, with more craft and diligence, if possible, than Lev practised, the Williamses set Polly’s cap for Lev, and who, in turn, was not unmindful of the fact that Williams “had something” too, as well as his two children, Polly and Peter. Things seemed indeed bright and propitious on all sides. The day came; Lev was on hand at Squire Cornelius’s, to hear the will read, and the estate of the deceased settled.

As usual in such cases in the country, quite a number of the neighbors were on hand–old Williams, of course.

“He was a queer old mortal,” began the Squire.

“But a good man,” sobbed Lev Smith, drawing out his bandanna, and smothering his sharp nose in it. “A good man, ‘Squire.”

“God’s his judge,” responded the Squire, and a number of the neighbors shook their head and stroked their beards, as if to say amen.

“Joseph Gunter mout have been a good man and he mout not,” continued the Squire; “some thinks he was not; I only say he was a queer old mortal, and here’s his will. Last will and testament of Joseph Gunter, etc., etc.,” continued the Squire.

“Poor, dear old man,” sobbed Lev. “Poor dear old man!”

“Being without wife or children,” continued the ‘Squire.

“O, dear! poor, dear old man, how I shall miss him in this world of sorrow and sin,” sobs Lev, while old Williams bit his skinny lips, and the neighbors again stroked their beards.

“To comfort my declining years–“

“Poor, dear old man, he was to be pitied; I did all I could do,” groaned the disconsolate Lev, “but I didn’t do half enough.”

“Passing coldly and cheerless through the world–” continued the ‘Squire.

“Yes, he did, poor old man; O, dear!” says Lev.

“Cared for by none, hated and shunned by all (Lev looked vacantly over his handkerchief, at the Squire), I have made up my mind (Lev all attention) that no mortal shall benefit by me; I have therefore mortgaged and sold (Lev’s eyes spreading) everything I had of a dollar’s value in the world, and buried the money in the earth where none but the devil himself can find it!”

There was a general snicker and stare–all eyes on Lev, his face as blank as a sham cartridge, while old Williams’s countenance fell into a concatenation of grimaces and wrinkles–language fails to describe!

“But here’s a codicil,” says the ‘Squire, re-adjusting his glasses. “Knowing my nephew, Levi Smith, expects something (Lev brightens up, old Williams grins!)–he has hung around me for a long time, expecting it (Lev’s jaw falls), I do hereby freely forgive him his six years boarding and lodging, and, furthermore, make him a present of my two old negroes, Ben and Dinah.”

“The–the–the–cussed old screw,” bawls old Williams.

“The infernal, double and twisted, mean, contemptible, miserable old scoundrel!” cries poor Lev, foaming with virtuous indignation, and swinging his doubled up fists.

“And you–you–you cussed, do-less, good for nothing, hypocritical skunk, you,” yells old Williams, shaking his bony fingers in poor Lev’s face, the neighbors grinning from ear to ear, “to humbug me, my wife, my Polly, in this yer way. Now clear yourself–take them old niggers, don’t leave ’em here for the crows to eat–clear yourself!”

Lev Smith sneaks off like a kill-sheep dog, leaving old Ben and Dinah to the tender mercies of a quite miserable and equally wretched neighborhood. Polly Williams didn’t “take on” much about the matter, but in the course of a few weeks took another venture in love’s lottery, and–was married. Poor Lev Smith returned to the scenes of his childhood, a wiser and a poorer man.