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.
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