Project Gutenberg's The Gentleman from Everywhere, by James Henry Foss

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Title: The Gentleman from Everywhere

Author: James Henry Foss

Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12193]

Language: English

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THE GENTLEMAN FROM EVERYWHERE

BY

JAMES HENRY FOSS

ILLUSTRATED

1903

TO

MY BELOVED, ON EARTH AND IN HEAVEN,

THIS BOOK IS

MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED

IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT

BY ITS PERUSAL

  Many sailing o'er life's solemn main,
  Forlorn and shipwrecked brothers, may take heart again.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Launching of My Life Boat
II. My First Voyage
III. Near to Nature's Heart
IV. Joys and Sorrows of School-Days
V. Career of a Dominie-Pedagogue
VI. Dreams of My Youth
VII. A Disenchanted Collegian-Preacher
VIII. In Shadow Land
IX. Sunlight and Darkness in Palace and Cottage
XI. Adventures in Mosquito Land
XI. In Arcadie
XII. From Philistine to Benedict and a Honeymoon
XIII. The Angels of Life and Death
XIV. Tribulations of a Widower
XV. Faith Sees a Star
XVI. On the Political Stump
XVII. That Eddyfying Christian Science
XVIII. In the Land of Flowers
XIX. Sunbeam, The Seminole
XX. A Founder of Towns and Clubs
XXI. A Million Dollar Business with a One Dollar Capital
XXII. Pendulum 'twixt Smiles and Tears
XXIII. Monarch of all He Surveyed: Then Deposed,
XXIV. Foregleams of Immortality
XXV. A Practical Socialist and Colonizer
XXVI. Hand in Hand with Angels
XXVII. Among the Law-Sharks
XXVIII. Campaigning in Wonderland
XXIX. Among the Clouds
XXX. Disenchanted: Home Again
XXXI. The Florida Crackers
XXXII. Looking Forward

[Illustration: [cursive] Your friend, the Author
James H. Foss]

CHAPTER I.

LAUNCHING OF MY LIFE-BOAT.

  Wild was the night, yet a wilder night
    Hung around o'er the mother's pillow;
  In her bosom there waged a fiercer fight
    Than the fight on the wrathful billow.

Already there were more children than potatoes in her hut of logs, and yet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordained that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born.

A sympathizing neighbor held over the suffering woman an umbrella to shield her from the rain which poured through the dilapidated roof, and when the dreary light of that Sunday morning dawned, my frail bark was launched on the stormy, sullen sea of life.

My father, a good man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable him to call on his best girl in captivating style, and said friend expressed his gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery.

That same night the boom broke, and allowed all the savings of our family invested in logs, cut by my father and his lumbermen, to float down the river and be lost in the sea.

Thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded the future of myself, the fourth son of a fourth son who, on that Sunday, in the dog-days of 1841, reluctantly came into this world.

The howling of the wolves in the surrounding wild-woods, the screaming of the catamounts in the near-by tree-tops, the sterile dog-star drying up the crops, the marching of my father to fight in the threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for months before this fateful night to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloomy forebodings in the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the mind of the baby yet unborn.

All through that wretched summer, scorching drought alternating with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the farmers, and premature frost destroyed the few remaining stalks of corn, so that when the winter snows came, gaunt famine stared our family fiercely in the face.

My father and three brothers faced the withering storms bravely, unpacking their internal stores of sunshine, as the camel in the desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outward water fails.

We were isolated from human companionship, except when occasionally the doctor came on the tops of the fences and branches of the pine-trees to soothe the pains of my sickly mother. At this time the snow was so deep that a tunnel was cut to the neighboring hovel where shivered our ancient horse and cow.

My father and brothers tramped with snare and gun on snow-shoes through the woods, securing occasionally a partridge or squirrel, and semi-occasionally a deer, or pickerel from the lake. On one of these occasions, two of my brothers and the dog met with an adventure which nearly gave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows. As they faced the terrible cold of a January morning, the wailing of the winds in the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storm which burst upon them in great fury while about two miles from home. Bewildered and benumbed, they dug a hole in the snow down to the earth, and were soon buried many feet deep, thus affording them some relief from the cold; but they nearly famished with hunger and gave themselves up for lost. Suddenly, the dog, who was huddled with them for warmth, jumped away whining and scratching in great excitement. He refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, digging for some minutes, his claws struck a tree, then, rushing over the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused them from their lethargy to follow him; but nothing was visible but a hole in a tree through which the dog jumped and barked furiously.

Cutting the hole larger with their axe, they found the interior to be dry punk, which at once suggested the exhilarating thought of a fire, and soon a delightful heat from the burning drywood permeated their snow cave, the smoke being more endurable than the previous cold. All at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the tree with whines which drove the dog wild with excitement, then, with burning embers and suffocating smoke, down came a huge animal, well-nigh breaking the necks of frantic dog and "rubbering" boys.

After this came the tug of war. Teeth, axe, gun, fire, dog, bear, and boys all mixed up in a fight to the finish. Finally, as bruin was not fully recovered from the comatose state of his winter hibernating, after many scratches and thumps, cuts and shots, came the survival of the fittest.

Not even imperial Caesar, with the world at his feet, could have been prouder than were boys and dog when they looked at their prostrate foe, and reflected that this conquest meant the