“Then they must be pretty formidable antagonists.”
“And I have gotten letters warning me and denouncing the men who have planned and worked up the matter—and who would carry it through if they were allowed to do so—as though they were thieves.”
He rang a bell and sent for the letters. Among them was one from Dr. Cary and another from General Legaie. Though strangers, they said they wrote to him as one reported to be interested, and protested against the scheme of Still and Leech, who were destroying the State and pillaging the people. They contrasted the condition of the State before the war and at the present time. Dr. Cary’s letter stated that “for purposes of identification” he would say that both his father and grandfather had been Governors of the State. General Legaie’s letter was signed “Late General, C. S. A.”
“What are you going to do with such people!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter. “They abuse those men as if they were pickpockets, and they are the richest and most influential men in that county, and Leech will, without doubt, be the next Governor.” He handed Major Welch a newspaper containing a glowing account of Leech’s services to the Commonwealth, and a positive assertion that he would be the next Governor of the State.
“What did you write them in reply?” asked Major Welch, who was taking another glance at the letters.
“Why, I wrote them that I believed I was capable of conducting my own affairs,” said the capitalist, with satisfaction, running his hands deep in his pockets; “and if they would stop thinking about their grandfathers and the times before the war, and think a little more about their children and the present, it would be money in their pockets.”
“And what did they reply to that?”
“Ah—why, I don’t believe I ever got any reply to that. I suppose the moss had covered them by that time,” he laughed. Major Welch looked thoughtful, and the capitalist changed his tone.
“In fact I had already made the investments, and I had to see them through. Major Leech is very friendly to me. It was through him we were induced to go into the enterprise—through him—and because of the opportunities it offered, at the same time that it was made perfectly safe by the guarantee of both the counties and the States. He used to be in my—in our—employ, and he is a very shrewd fellow, Leech is. That was the way we came to go in, and it doesn’t do to swap horses in the stream.”
“Mrs. Welch thinks very highly of him,” said Major Welch, meditatively. “She has had some correspondence with him on behalf of her charitable society for the freedmen, and she has been much impressed by him.”