VOLUNTEER ABOVE PRICE. 185 



Washingtonville, Orange Co.. N. Y., 



February 13, 1882. 



R. S. Veech, Esq : 



Your telegram was duly received, but being ab- 

 sent from my home, it was not placed in my hands 

 until too late to reply last evening. 



While there is no person that would be more wel- 

 come at the farm than yourself, if the only object of 

 your visit would be the purchase of Volunteer, then 

 your trip would not be a profitable or successful one, 

 as no breeder in Kentucky has money enough to buy 

 him. 



Volunteer is a permanent fixture at the Walnut 

 Grove Farm ; and if he lays down in the sleep of death 

 before his owner, he will have an honorable burial on 

 the farm, and a suitable monument erected over him 

 to mark his resting place and commemorate his great- 

 ness, or his body will be presented to some national 

 institution for scientific purposes. 



I have as high a regard for money as the most of 

 men for the uses which it may subserve, but there are 

 certain things which money cannot buy, as the 

 Teacher of old taught Simon the Samaritan. I can 

 recall but one incident in all history so to the point as 

 that related of our great jurist, statesman and orator, 

 Daniel Webster, who, when upon his deathbed and 

 only a few hours before his demise, directed his at- 

 tendants to have his herd of Short Horns driven up 

 before his window, where, when bolstered up on his 

 couch, he might be permitted once more to look into 

 the broad, honest faces of those animals, that never 

 done him a wrong or deceived him. Was there ever 



