For What Shall It Profit A Man

About the Book

The novel starts during the first year of the Civil War, and briefly tells of the Federal defeat at First Manassas. This sets the circumstances for the gold in the depository at the arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to be shipped to Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia). Rail lines have been ripped up, so the gold is shipped by covered wagon with a detachment of nine soldiers and a civilian guide.

The Eyreton family of Cameron County, Pennsylvania, hear of the war starting. The following year, when two of the Eyreton boys go into the village of St. Mary’s for supplies, they observe a detachment of Federal soldiers in town who are escorting a wagon. Rumors circulate that the wagon has new breech-loading rifles in it, but also a quantity of gold hidden in a false wagon bed. The boys return home, and two days later the family hear gun shots below their sawmill property. They go to investigate.

* * * * * In the fifth/sixth chapter, although strongly connected to the first four chapters, the time span advances to 1988. Jim Crabtree and Danny Schwenk enter the story. They leave Philadelphia for camping in the mountains. This chapter describes the type of men they are.

Danny proves to be a very likeable, but offbeat animal-rights type person. During the livestock auction at the state fair, Dan gets in a fight with a man and his brother over their cruel treatment to a horse. Jim Crabtree is drawn into the fight. The fight develops in a brutal manner, and Dan inadvertently kills one of the men with a shovel. Jim and Dan escape the fairgrounds.

Jim Crabtree’s best friend, Jubal Dawkins, comes down from upstate New York to camp with Jim and Dan in Potter County. He brings along an acquaintance named Clint Kirker. Jim, who feels he is ready to get married, meets a woman he thinks may be a prospective wife. When the men return to Philadelphia, while doing research at the main library, they come across a pamphlet-type book titled "Lost Treasures of Northern Pennsylvania". The information in this book figures into the storyline. In the next ten chapters, after trials and tribulations, for the sake of space, we will advance the storyline to the twentieth chapter. Danny is dismayed that in this day-and-age, steel-jaw trapping is still going on in forty-seven states. With his share from money the men had come into, he buys a van and sets out to destroy some traplines in the mountains. **And so, ... Please also read the "Bookstore Author´s Bio".

About the Author

About the Arthur: James Matthews is an animal-lover and environmentalist-type person. This is reflected in events that occur in the latter parts of the novel. For almost thirty years, James Matthews was a bathroom remodeling-plumbing and heating contractor, in the Roxborough/Manayunk sections of Philadelphia. He first became interested in writing during the late 1980's, and during those years he took courses at the Wagner Institute of Science and the Community College, both in Philadelphia. He still resides in lower Roxborough.