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, andyet, another unwelcome guest was coming, to whom fate had ordainedthat it would have been money in his pocket had he never been born.

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

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

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

Thus storm, flood, calamity and sorrow, far in advance heralded thefuture 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

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