He was always bringing home somebody, who had a scheme; to build a road, or open a mine, or plant a swamp with cane to grow paper-stock, or found a hospital, or invest in a patent shad-bone separator, or start a college somewhere on the frontier, contiguous to a land speculation.
The Bolton house was a sort of hotel for this kind of people.

They were always coming.

Ruth had known them from childhood, and she used to say that her father attracted them as naturally as a sugar hogshead does flies.

Ruth had an idea that a large portion of the world lived by getting the rest of the world into schemes.

Mr.Bolton never could say "no" to any of them, not even, said Ruth again, to the society for stamping oyster shells with scripture texts before they were sold at retail.
Mr.Bigler's plan this time, about which he talked loudly, with his mouth full, all dinner time, was the building of the Tunkhannock, Rattlesnake and Young-womans-town railroad, which would not only be a great highway to the west, but would open to market inexhaustible coal-fields and untold millions of lumber.