A Man for the Ages

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A Man for the Ages

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Title: A Man for the Ages A Story of the Builders of Democracy
Author: Irving Bacheller
Illustrator: John Wolcott Adams
Release Date: December 5, 2005 [EBook #17237]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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A MAN FOR THE AGES

By IRVING BACHELLER
A STORY OF THE BUILDERS OF DEMOCRACY
AUTHOR OF THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING, KEEPING UP
WITH LIZZIE, ETC.
1919

TO MY DEAR FRIEND AND COMRADE ALEXANDER GROSSET
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN TOKEN OF MY ESTEEM

_Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good
in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become
rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let
not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him
work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring
that his own shall be safe from violence when built._
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. _March 21, 1864._

A Letter
TO THE AGED AND HONORABLE JOSIAH TRAYLOR FROM
HIS GRANDSON, A SOLDIER IN FRANCE, WHEREIN THE
MOTIVE AND INSPIRATION OF THIS NARRATIVE ARE
BRIEFLY PRESENTED.
_In France, September 10, 1915._
Dear Grandfather:
At last I have got mine. I had been scampering towards the stars, like a

jack-rabbit chased by barking greyhounds, when a shrapnel shell
caught up with me. It sneezed all over my poor bus, and threw some
junk into me as if it thought me nothing better than a kind of waste
basket. Seems as if it had got tired of carrying its load and wanted to
put it on me. It succeeded famously but I got home with the bus. Since
then they have been taking sinkers and fish hooks out me fit only for
deep water. Don't worry, I'm getting better fast. I shall play no more
football and you will not see me pitching curves and running bases
again. No, I shall sit in the grandstand myself hereafter and there will
not be so much of me but I shall have quite a shuck on my soul for all
that. I've done a lot of thinking since I have been lying on my back with
nothing else to do. When your body gets kind of turned over in the
ditch it's wonderful how your mind begins to hustle around the place.
Until this thing happened my intellect was nothing more than a vague
rumor. I had heard of it, now and then, in college, and I had hoped that
it would look me up some time and ask what it could do for me, but it
didn't. These days I would scarcely believe that I have a body, the poor
thing being upon the jacks in this big machine shop, but my small
intellect is hopping all over the earth and back again and watching
every move of these high-toned mechanics with their shiny tools and
white aprons. My mind and I have kind of got acquainted with each
other and I'm getting attached to it. It is quite an energetic, promising
young mind and I don't know but I'll try to make a permanent place for
it in my business.
I've been thinking of our Democracy and of my coming over here to be
chucked into this big jack pot as if my life were a small coin; of all the
dear old days of the past I have thought and chiefly how the wonderful
story of your life has been woven into mine--threads of wisdom and
adventure and humor and romance. I like to unravel it and look at the
colors. Lincoln is the strongest, longest thread in the fabric. Often I
think of your description of the great, tender hands that lifted you to his
shoulder when you were a boy, of the droll and kindly things that he
said to you. I have laughed and cried recalling those hours of yours
with Jack Kelso and Dr. John Allen and the rude young giant Abe, of
which I have heard you tell so often as we sat in the firelight of a winter
evening. Best of all I remember the light of your own wisdom as it

glowed