Part 1 (1/2)

The Gentleman from Everywhere

by James Henry Foss

CHAPTER I

LAUNCHING OF MY LIFE-BOAT

Wild was the night, yet a wilder night Hung around o'er the ht Than the fight on the wrathful billow

Already there were s, and yet, another unwelco, to whom fate had ordained that it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born

A sy woman an uh the dilapidated roof, and when the dreary light of that Sundaydawned, my frail bark was launched on the storood man, but a ne'er-do-well financially, had loaned his best clothes, watch and pocketbook to a friend to enable hi style, and said friend expressed his gratitude by eloping with the girl and all the borrowed finery

That sas of our fas, 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 ca of the wolves in the surrounding oods, the screa of the cata up the crops, the ht in the threatened Aroostook war, all conspired for ht to awaken a restlessness, discontent, and gloos in the lonely mother's heart which prenatal influences impressed upon the h that wretched su with cloud-bursts vied with each other in blasting the hopes of the far stalks of corn, so that when the winter snows caaunt famine stared our family fiercely in the face

My father and three brothers faced the withering stor their internal stores of sunshi+ne, as the camel in the desert draws refreshment from his inner tank when outater fails

We were isolated from human companionshi+p, 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 tihboring hovel where shi+vered our ancient horse and cow

My father and brothers trah 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 ave them deliverance from all earthly sorrows As they faced the terrible cold of a Januaryof the winds in the tree-tops, and the few flying snowflakes foreboded a storreat fury while about twoa hole in the snon to the earth, and were soon buriedthem soer and gave the, as huddled with thereat excitement

He refused to obey their orders to be still and die in peace, but, digging for so over the boys and back again to the trees repeatedly, he roused the was visible but a hole in a tree through which the dog juer 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 fro drywood per more endurable than the previous cold All at once they heard a strange snorting and scratching above in the tree hines which drove the dog ith excite s the necks of frantic dog and ”rubbering” boys

After this ca, bear, and boys all ht to the finish Finally, as bruin was not fully recovered fro, 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 physical salvation of our entire family Soon the chips flew from the tree, and over a cheerful fire they roasted and devoured bear steaks to repletion

Digging to the surface, they found that the storhs of the tree, they dragged hoh the hours of the following night the wolves, attracted by the scent of blood, howled and scratched frantically around the hut, calling for their share in that ”chain of destruction,” by which the laws of the universe have ordained that all creatures shall subsist

The infant, of course, joined lustily in the chorus until the boys almost wished themselves back in their shroud of snow

So, with alternate feasting and fasting we passed the long weeks of that Arctic winter until the frogs in the neighboring swao round, better go round,”

proclaimed the season of freshets when the vast plain beloas traversible only in boats Then the birds returned froht no seed-time or harvest, for that was the ever to be remembered ”Year without a sueese shot on the lake, and the wary and uncertain fish caught with the hook, all huion would have returned to the invisible froht had coratory fever seized upon us all, and my parents determined to seek some unknown far away, to sail to the beautiful land of somewhere, for they felt sure that--

So-birds dwell; And they hushed their sad repining In the faith that somewhere all is well

Soate; Out there the clouds are rifted, Soels wait