Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/592

 James Grant, a Model American

559

surmounted by an abundance of dark He saddled his horse, and with a few hair. His eyes were of that changeble hundred dollars, which he had saved gray which is associated so often with out of his earnings as school teacher, he genius. His movements were quick, headed for the Blue Ridge, as the and he gave every indication of being a mountains of North Carolina were and person of nervous but decisive tempera are familiarly called, and thence wended ment. His nose was prominent and his his way into the blue grass of Kentucky. mouth was somewhat broad and firm, Then, somehow, things drifted in the and his voice deep and commanding. wind from the Northwest that there On the whole, his personality, as he was a place on Lake Michigan, called came to maturity, could not have been Chicago, which had about five hundred considered heroic, but it bore every inhabitants, and a great future. Young impress of great capacity and great Grant took his chance with many other determination. persons and headed for Chicago. There He had somehow acquired an aversion he obtained a license to practise law to slavery and for that reason he desired in January, 1834; and it is noteworthy to emigrate from the South. He loved that he had a fist fight over his first and respected his parents and therefore client. It is hard, perhaps, for the young he did not communicate his aversion lawyer to have to suffer corporal pun for slavery to them; he did not wish to ishment for the sake of his client's cause a discussion which might give cause, but the client is not likely to annoyance or distress to his mother and forget the fact or to scrutinize the bill father. Hence he resolved to find a too closely under such circumstances. path over the hills of his native state, Young Grant found ample proof of and into the partly undiscovered West. these truths in a short while, for we

JUDGE GRANT'S OLD RESIDENCE IN DAVENPORT From a photograph taken in 1878