{"product_id":"2940013654662","title":"The Wild Man Of The West","description":"CHAPTER ONE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIN WHICH THE READER IS INTRODUCED TO A MAD HERO, A RECKLESS LOVER, AND A\u003cbr\u003eRUNAWAY HUSBAND--BACKWOODS JUVENILE TRAINING DESCRIBED--THE PRINCIPLES\u003cbr\u003eOF FIGHTING FULLY DISCUSSED, AND SOME VALUABLE HINTS THROWN OUT.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMarch Marston was mad!  The exact state of madness to which March had\u003cbr\u003eattained at the age when we take up his personal history--namely,\u003cbr\u003esixteen--is uncertain, for the people of the backwoods settlement in\u003cbr\u003ewhich he dwelt differed in their opinions on that point.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe clergyman, who was a Wesleyan, said he was as wild as a young\u003cbr\u003ebuffalo bull; but the manner in which he said so led his hearers to\u003cbr\u003econclude that he did not think such a state of ungovernable madness to\u003cbr\u003ebe a hopeless condition, by any means.  The doctor said he was as mad as\u003cbr\u003ea hatter; but this was an indefinite remark, worthy of a doctor who had\u003cbr\u003enever obtained a diploma, and required explanation, inasmuch as it was\u003cbr\u003eimpossible to know _how_ mad he considered a hatter to be.  Some of the\u003cbr\u003etrappers who came to the settlement for powder and lead, said he was as\u003cbr\u003emad as a grisly bear with a whooping-cough--a remark which, if true,\u003cbr\u003emight tend to throw light on the diseases to which the grisly bear is\u003cbr\u003eliable, but which failed to indicate to any one, except perhaps\u003cbr\u003etrappers, the extent of young Marston's madness.  The carpenter and the\u003cbr\u003eblacksmith of the place--who were fast friends and had a pitched battle\u003cbr\u003eonly once a month, or twice at most--agreed in saying that he was as mad\u003cbr\u003eas a wild-cat.  In short, every one asserted stoutly that the boy was\u003cbr\u003emad, with the exception of the women of the settlement, who thought him\u003cbr\u003ea fine, bold, handsome fellow; and his own mother, who thought him a\u003cbr\u003eparagon of perfection, and who held the opinion (privately) that, in the\u003cbr\u003ewide range of the habitable globe there was not another like him--and\u003cbr\u003eshe was not far wrong!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow, the whole and sole reason why March Marston was thus deemed a\u003cbr\u003emadman, was that he displayed an insane tendency, at all times and in\u003cbr\u003eall manners, to break his own neck, or to make away with himself in some\u003cbr\u003esimilarly violent and uncomfortable manner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere was not a fence in the whole countryside that March had not bolted\u003cbr\u003eover at full gallop, or ridden crash through if he could not go over it.\u003cbr\u003eThere was not a tree within a circuit of four miles from the top of\u003cbr\u003ewhich he had not fallen.  There was not a pond or pool in the\u003cbr\u003eneighbourhood into which he had not soused at some period of his stormy\u003cbr\u003ejuvenile career, and there was not a big boy whom he had not fought and\u003cbr\u003ethrashed--or been thrashed by--scores of times.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121263460592,"sku":"2940013654662","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013654662_p0.jpg?v=1763583557","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013654662","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}