after
the check came for it, he had transferred the money to a university
fund, and had borrowed fifty dollars of Bob Hendricks to clean up his
grocery bills and tide him over until his pension came. But he was a
practical old fox. He announced that he would give the money to a
college only if the town would give a similar sum, and what with John
Barclay's hundred-thousand-dollar donation, and Bob Hendricks' ten
thousand, and what with the subscription paper carried around by Colonel
Culpepper, who proudly headed it with five thousand dollars, and after
the figure wrote in red ink "in real estate," much to the town's
merriment, and what with public meetings and exhortations in the
churches, and what with voting one hundred thousand dollars in bonds by
Garrison County for the privilege of sending students to the college
without tuition, the amount was raised; and as the procession wheeled
out of Main Street to attend the ceremonies incident to laying the
corner-stone that beautiful October day, it is doubtful which was the
prouder man--Martin Culpepper, the master of ceremonies, in his plumed
hat, flashing sword, and red sash, or General Philemon Ward, who for the
first time in a dozen years heard the crowd cheer his name when the
governor in his speech pointed at the general's picture--his campaign
picture that had been hooted with derision and spattered with filth on
so many different occasions in the town. The governor's remarks were of
course perfunctory; he devoted five or ten minutes to the praise of
General Ward, of Sycamore Ridge, of John Barclay, and of education in
general, and then made his regular speech that he used for college
commencements, for addresses of welcome to church conferences, synods,
and assemblies, and for conclaves of the grand lodge. General Ward spoke
poorly, which was to his credit, considering the occasion, and Watts
McHurdie's poem got entangled with Juno and Hermes and Minerva and a
number of scandalous heathen gods,--who were no friends of Watts,--and
the crowd tired before he finished the second canto. But many
discriminating persons think that John Barclay's address, "The Time of
True Romance," was the best thing he ever wrote. It may be found in his
book as Chapter XI. "The Goths," he said, "came out of the woods, pulled
the beards of the senators, destroyed the Roman state, murdered and
pillaged the Roman people, and left the world the Gothic arch; the
Vikings came over the sea, ro