As he sat down at his desk, an hour later, he saw a letter lying there. It was one of Nettie's poor little school-girl love letters. A feeling of disgust and shame seized him. He crumpled the letter in his hands, and was on the point of throwing it away, when his mood changed, and he softened. By the side of Miss Wilbur poor little Nettie was a willful child.
A few days after there came to him a pamphlet directed in a woman's hand. Its title page struck him as something utterly new, but it was only the first of a flood of similar publications.
"The Coming Conflict. A Series of Lectures prophetic of the Coming Revolution of the Poor, when they will rise against the National Banks and against all Indirect Taxation."
Its dedication was marked with a pencil and he read it over and over: "To the Toiling Millions who produce all the wealth, yet because they have never controlled legislation, have been impoverished by unjust laws made in the interests of the Land-holder and the Money-changer, who seize upon and hold the surplus wealth of the nation by the same right that the slave-master held his slave, legal right and that alone, this tract is inscribed by the author."
It was Bradley's first intimation of the mighty forces beginning to stir in the deeps of American society. He found the pamphlet filled with great confusing thoughts. He confessed frankly in his letter to Miss Wilbur that he got nothing satisfactory out of it, though it made him think.
It was astonishing to himself to find his thoughts flowing out to her upon paper with the greatest ease. He was stricken with fear after he had mailed his letter, it was so bulky. He was appalled at the length of time which must pass before he might reasonably expect to hear from her. He counted the days, the hours that intervened. Her note came at last, and it made his blood leap as the clerk flung it out with a grin. "She's blessed yeh this time!" It was a red-headed clerk, and his grin, by reason of a quid of tobacco in his thin cheek, was particularly offensive. Bradley felt an impulse to call him out of his box and whip him.
When he opened the letter in his own room he felt a sort of fear. How would she reply? The letter gave out a faint perfume like that he remembered floated with her dress. It was a rather brief note, but very kind. She called his attention to two or three passages in the pamphlet, and especially asked him to read the chapters touching on the land and money questions. But the part over which he spent the most time was the paragraph at the close:
"I liked your letter very much. It shows a sincere desire for the truth. You will never stop short of the truth, I'm sure, but you will have sacrifices to make—you must expect that. I shall take great interest in your work.
"Very sincerely,
"Ida Wilbur."