Emmett Lawler eBook

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Lord, give to men who are old and rougher,
The things that little children suffer,
And let keep bright and undenled,
The young years of a little child.

- Masefield.

The First Episode

The child had arrived a month too soon. The doctor had arrived an hour too late. Emmett Lawler was six years old when this episode occurred. There was a commotion in a log cabin home in Ohio. During the first hour of the first of May his mother had closed her eyes upon a world from which the fairies of her girlhood had long since vanished. It had been her strength that kept the family ship from sinking in the sea of life.

Students of genealogy should pause here just a moment. Here was a dead eagle, born for the mountains, whose clipped wings had forced her to walk the mud roads of Ohio. From somewhere out of the long ago she had inherited a beautiful emotional nature. She had but scant education, and though her mind was powerful, it was ever and always a dreaming mind. In the midst of heart breaking realities she lived in a dream world of which John Keats was king.