THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN A Tale of the Battles of Peace By Irving Bacheller Author of “Eben Holden” “Silas Strong” etc., etc. New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers Copyright, 1909 TO MY DEAR FRIEND E. PRENTISS BAILEY [Illustration: 0010] [Illustration: 0011] FOREWORD |THIS is a tale of youth--of its loves and dreams and hazards, and of the incredible riches of purity which often belong to it. Many of the adventures which led to the Hand-Made Gentleman and the shop at Rushwater are from the author's own experience. Pearl is a composite of Davenport (the country blacksmith who invented an electric motor in 1833) and of a certain modest veteran of northern New York. It tells how steam-power chose its first long pathway and began its swift errands from the Atlantic to the middle continent; how the roar and rush of the water-floods betrayed their secret and suggested the coming of great things; how “the horses of the river” began to tread the turbine and yield their power to man; how the spirit of new enterprise contended with conservatism, ignorance, and greed in the capitals, and how, thereby, evils developed which we are now striving to correct. For its background of railroad and political history the author is indebted to many forgotten records, and to his friends A. Barton Hepburn, William C. Hudson, Arthur D. Chandler, and Mark D. Wilber, an honored Assemblyman in the sessions of 1865, 1866, and 1867, and later United States District Attorney. For the color of the day in Pittsburg, at the close of the war, he is under obligation to Mr. Andrew Carnegie; for that of Black Friday, to Mr. Thomas A. Edison. The author has held to no strict observance of the unity of place, the work of his characters being that of turning the State into one neighborhood. BOOK ONE--IN WHICH THE ADVENTURES OF CRICKET PRESENTED, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF HIM THE HAND-MADE GENTLEMAN A TALE OF THE BATTLES OF PEACE ADVENTURE I--BEING THAT OF CRICKET AND THE CHILD GHOST [Illustration: 9023] WAS born in 1843. Since then I have endured many perils, of which I shall try to tell you. First of all, there was the peril of being named Solomon; and it would appear that, fora day or two, I was threatened also with the name of Zephaniah, but escaped at last with the lighter penalty of Jacob. When I found myself I had just printed my full name in big letters on a slate--Jacob Ezra Heron. I have had some success, but--bless you!--it is poverty when I think of the sense of riches that I had that day. I will try to give only the merest outline of my chief assets, and they were: this name, which was all my own; a mother, who was the joint possession of myself and my sister, four years older than I; one friend of the name of Lizzie McCormick, and one little green book which was a legacy from my grandmother. I had practically no liabilities save a number of unpunished sins.