Tom Allis, my new partner, was one of the most peculiar men I have ever met. In social life he was affable and self-possessed, but in his business intercourse exhibited confusion and a shyness that was simply amazing.
Actually and in appearance he was about my age, while in his manner he was a bashful boy of seventeen. It was impossible for him to talk without blushing and appearing extremely embarrassed.
As I had only met him socially, this phase was a revelation to me. I tried to get him out amongst the trade, thinking that after he had become well acquainted his embarrassment would be overcome, or at least partially so. My efforts in this direction failed and he settled down to a routine office-man, and while he looked after that end of the business satisfactorily, I could easily have found a clerk at fifteen dollars per week to do as well.
This was disappointing, but I hoped that as he gained experience his services would be of greater value to the firm. Meanwhile, I let him relieve me entirely of the office work.
Tom had been with me only a few months when he came to me for advice in a matter in which he felt he had become involved.
It appeared he had been calling regularly on a young lady, a pretty little French girl. I had met her but once and then was impressed with the idea that she had a temper which it would be unpleasant to arouse, though I may have done her an injustice.
At all events, Tom said he thought the girl was in love with him; that probably he had given her reason to believe his attentions were serious, and he saw no honorable way out except to ask her to be his wife.
I saw that the boy, so he seemed to me, was really very much disturbed. I told him before I could offer any advice I must know every detail, and after learning that not one word of love had ever passed between them, that their intercourse was really nothing more than that of intimate friends, and he assuring me that he had not a particle of love for the girl, I advised him strongly to give up any idea of offering her marriage and to gently but firmly break off the intimacy.
He accepted the advice gratefully and acted on it.
A few years later he married the girl, and I presume that he told her of my share in this matter. She probably held me responsible and no doubt influenced him to some extent in a course of action, referred to farther on in this narrative, that I have always regarded with regret.
It is a thankless task to advise one in such matters, even though the one be your friend.
Business continued to improve slowly, but at the end of the year my partner had drawn as his share of the profits, for the eight months he had been with me, twenty-two hundred dollars.
He was more than satisfied, and well he might be.
During the winter of 1874 and '75 I had another and more trying siege of rheumatism. As in the previous spring, with the advent of warmer weather I found relief, but I knew the disease had become chronic and it worried me.
This worry, however, I soon dismissed from my mind to make room for one more formidable and pressing.
Hard times were coming again and there were two now to divide the profits.
The furnishing of our home had absorbed a good portion of the three thousand dollars I had received from my partner, and my living expenses together with what it was necessary for me to do toward the support of my parents and sisters exhausted my income.
My always-cheerful and devoted wife, and my boy, just arriving at an interesting age, made home so attractive that I was able to forget business when away from the office.
Each morning with the parting caress came words of loving encouragement that did much to support me through the day, and at night on my return home, my greeting from wife and boy always dispelled the clouds hanging over me.
I was happy, infinitely so, despite the business worry.
My physicians had advised my leaving Brooklyn for a dryer atmosphere.
We had a lease of our house until the spring of 1876, but had decided that then we would try country life.
Many hours were passed pleasantly in discussing the plan and its probable results. My wife's fertile brain would paint to me in pleasing colors what the country home should be—the cottage and its coziness, the garden, the lawn and flowers, my health restored, the benefit of country life to the boy, and the relief to my mind through largely reduced living expenses.
We were eager for the time to come to make the change.
On the twelfth of December our second child was born. My first boy had a brother, and again my wife, noble woman, gave testimony of her great love.
No trials that came to her prevented the outpouring of that love to me.
She knew how I needed her fond encouragement, particularly at that period, and she gave it to me daily, always with the same sweet smile and tender caress.
That winter will never be forgotten by me for the torture which I suffered from the almost nightly attacks of that awful rheumatism. Medicine did not seem of any use.
Night after night until long past midnight my devoted wife, with ceaseless energy, would apply every few moments hot applications to relieve the cruel pains, until finally I would fall asleep for a few hours' rest.
I lost flesh rapidly, and when spring came was hardly more than a semblance of my former self.
It was indeed time that I should shake the dust of Brooklyn from my feet.
Before the winter was over we had commenced to scan the advertising columns of the daily papers for "country places to rent." We wanted if possible to get a place in the mountainous section of New Jersey. I wanted to get away from air off the salt water and this section of the country seemed the best.
It must be healthy and at a low rent. For the rest we must take what we could get at the price we could pay.
Our search ended in our taking a place of about six acres, five minutes' walk from a station on the Morris & Essex Railroad, between Summit and Morristown.
On the property was a farm-house more than one hundred years old, and this the owner repaired and improved by building an extra room and a piazza across the front of the house.
The rent was two hundred dollars a year. We moved there early in April. The last night in the Brooklyn house I had one of my worst attacks of rheumatism.I have never had the slightest twinge of it since.
Blessed be New Jersey!
We had been in our new home but a very few days before we were quite in accord with the sentiment that "God made the country and man made the town."
The house in its exterior was the ordinary, old-fashioned, one-and-a-half story farmhouse, improved by a piazza; but the interior, under the deft hands and good taste of my wife, had an appearance both home-like and cozy that was very attractive.
We had to get accustomed to the low ceilings, only seven feet high; but this did not distress us, though in our parlor, a room twenty-eight feet long, the effect was always peculiar.
The grounds around the house were not laid out. It was simply a case of a house set on a little elevation, in the center of a rather rough lawn, and without a path or a flower-bed, no shrubs and but few trees.
I hired a man with plow and horse for a day or two and we made a path from the piazza to the road, set out an arbor-vitae hedge, made two or three small flower-beds, and had the kitchen-garden ploughed.
The man planted the potatoes and corn in a field next the garden, but the kitchen garden was my hobby, and with all the enthusiasm of a child with a new toy I took personal possession of it.
About an acre in extent, fenced and almost entirely free from even small stones, the soil was rich and productive. I met with wonderful success, and the crops that I raised, in their earliness and size, astonished the natives.
Every pleasant morning I was up at five o'clock, and after a bowl of crackers and milk, worked for two or three hours. Then a bath, followed by breakfast, and after a day in town, which, owing to dull business, I made very short, I was back in the afternoon at work again.
How I did enjoy those days.
In the early stages my wife used to laugh at me for digging up the seed to see if it had sprouted, so impatient was I to see the growing plants.
We had an ice-house, filled for us by the owner without charge, and in melon season I picked the melons in the morning and left them in the ice-house all day.
My mouth waters at the thought of those delicious melons.
The fact that I raised everything myself, practically by my own labor, added greatly to our enjoyment in the eating.
The walk between house and station was for most of the distance through a private lane which was in part shaded by large trees.
The quaint old village, one of the oldest in the State, was interesting; but not so the people, at least to us. It was a farming community, and of social life there was none.
Still, we felt that no privation. We had found what we sought—a pleasant, comfortable home, my return to good health, and economical living.
During the first year of our residence in the country our entire expenditure was but thirteen hundred dollars, which was fully three thousand dollars less than the year previous.
A few of our most intimate friends were invited occasionally for visits of a few days, and these little visits we always enjoyed; but to each other my wife and I were all-sufficient, and in the dear little home there was never a feeling of loneliness.
It was truly "love in a cottage."
During the summer, about once a week, I would hire from a farmer a horse and rockaway, and with wife and babies take a drive, our favorite ride having as an objective point a visit to the old Ford mansion, Washington's headquarters at Morristown.
There is certainly no section of country in the vicinity of New York city that can compare in natural beauty with Morris County, New Jersey, and we commanded the best of this, in rather antiquated style of equipage to be sure, but at the small cost of half a dollar for "all the afternoon."
Thinking of that old carriage recalls to mind an incident of later years which so impressed me I shall never forget it:
With my wife I was spending a few days at Old Point Comfort, and while we were there John Jacob Astor and his bride arrived, on their wedding tour.
The hack service at the Point at that time was about the worst imaginable. The hotel had none, and a few old negroes with disreputable "foh de wah" vehicles and horses that could only get over the poor roads by constant urging, picked up a few dollars by driving guests of the hotel to the Hampton School.
One afternoon when there were just two of these hacks standing in front of the hotel, I engaged the better one.
As a matter of fact, the only difference I could see was that the one I selected had been washed probably at least once that season, whereas the other appeared to be plastered with the dried mud of ages.
We drove to the school and on our return met the other hack on its way there.
The hackman had disappeared, and in his place, driving positively the worst-looking turnout I ever saw, was John Jacob Astor with his bride sitting beside him.
The spectacle of that man, with his social position and his enormous wealth, driving under such conditions, struck me first as ludicrous and then as a living example of the great leveling power that in the end makes all men equal regardless of wealth or position.
My boys were thriving in the country air, living out of doors most of the day. With only one maid, my wife had no difficulty in keeping busy while I was in town, and the summer passed quickly and pleasantly.
Matters at the office had been going badly for many months and any improvement in prospect was too far distant to be discerned.
My partner was absolutely useless to me except as a clerk, and indeed a good clerk would have been better, for I could have commanded him to do things that I could only request of my partner, and I had long since learned that these requests carried no weight unless they were in the line of duty that was agreeable to him.
On first taking up my residence in the country I felt it necessary, in consequence of poor health, to remain at home a day or two each week, but I soon had to abandon this custom, for on such days there was nothing accomplished.
Orders by mail and wire which should have had immediate attention were held over until the following day, and this of course could not be permitted, without jeopardizing the business.
When I would ask Tom why he had not been out in the trade instead of remaining at his desk all day, the only satisfaction I could get was his statement that the trade treated him as boy and he did not like it.
I knew but too well that the trade sized him up about right.
He meant well enough, but it simply wasn't in him to assert himself.
He had been with me a little over two years and during that time his share of the profits had returned him the three thousand dollars he had invested and in addition paid him what would have been a good salary for the services rendered.
As he was unmarried and lived with his parents, paying no board, a very small business would give him an income sufficient for his requirements, and apparently he was contented to let matters go on as they were.
What might be considered easy times for him with no responsibilities, was for me, with a wife and two children, parents and two sisters, to provide for, an impossible proposition.
Something had to be done to change the status.
I waited until the first of September in hopes of some sign of better times, but business looked worse rather than better, and I decided to make him an offer for his interest. I thought best to put this in writing, and while doing so went fully into our affairs and endeavored to show him how impossible it was for me to go on any longer under existing conditions. Incidentally I emphasized the fact that after more than two years' experience he was still unable to accomplish anything that could not be done by a clerk.
Then I made him an offer of two thousand dollars to be paid in monthly instalments of fifty dollars each, without interest, the first payment to be made in January. For these payments I offered him my notes.
I had written this on Saturday morning, and having finished while he was at luncheon, laid it on his desk and took my usual train home, which gave him an opportunity to think the matter over until Monday.
When we met on Monday morning I was not surprised to find him in a bad temper.
He said at once that he declined my offer, and having paid his money to come into the concern he proposed to stay.
I told him I was sorry I could not see my way clear to make any better offer and it was that or nothing. If he would not accept it, then the only alternative was for me to step out and leave him the business.
This suggestion startled him. He knew he could not carry on the business without me.
After going to his father's office for consultation he returned and said he had decided to accept my offer. "As to those notes," he said, "you may give them to me if you like, but I don't suppose you will ever pay them."
We terminated our partnership that day, but I continued the business under the same style, W. E. Stowe & Co., complying with the legal requirements governing such action.
While Allis was my partner, on more than one occasion, when we were discussing the wretched state of business, he would call himself a "Jonah," and in the light of later developments it really looked as if such was the fact.
When we separated, unquestionably the outlook was most gloomy. I could not see a ray of light ahead, and without the constant encouragement of my wife, who always insisted that brighter days were in store for us, I might have given up the ship.
Before I had been alone a month an improvement was perceptible, in another month it was more decided, and by the end of the year there was no longer any doubt that an era of good times was approaching.
Those notes for two thousand dollars given Allis, and which he thought I would never pay, carried no interest. There was no reason I should anticipate the payments if I did not wish to. Probably he would have been glad to have me discount them. I had forty months in which to pay them. I paid them all in full within six months.
I thought he would appreciate my doing so. Quite the contrary.
Of course my prepayment so far in advance of maturity was evidence of my prosperity.
He, in his small soul, could not but believe I knew this prosperity was coming and had forced him out of the firm, just in advance of its arrival. I met him in the street frequently and noticed the change in his manner. A few weeks later he did not return my bow and we have since been strangers.
When I heard shortly after of his engagement to the little French girl, I concluded that his envy of my success and her prejudice for my share in the temporary cessation of his intimacy with her had cost me a friend. And yet it surely was through no fault of mine.
The year 1878 was to me a memorable one.
The improvement in business the previous year had been sufficient to enable me to pay my indebtedness to Allis, meet all my current expenses, and enter the new year with a good balance in bank.
My health had become entirely restored, and with mind free from worry life was indeed well worth the living. The home life, happy under adverse circumstances, was of course made more enjoyable by my improved financial condition.
The little rivulet of prosperity of 1877 broadened in 1878 to a stream, small at first, but ever widening and leading on to the sea.
On the second of July there was born to us our first daughter.
My wife and myself were delighted with this latest arrival from love-land. We had looked forward with fond anticipation to the event, and our hearts' desire was that a daughter should be added to the family circle. The blessing had come to us and we were grateful.
What shall I say of the mother of that little daughter?
What can I say that would do justice to her love and devotion?
It is said "there is no love like a mother's love." True, but with all reverence to my own sainted mother, there is another love that has come to me, the love of a wife for her husband, that I cannot but maintain is the greatest of all.
How completely that little baby girl ruled the household was soon in evidence. For the time being she was queen and we her loyal subjects, anxious to do her honor. The little brothers were more than pleased to have a sister and rivaled each other in their efforts to entertain her.
The mother was proud of her girl and I—well, to tell the truth,I was deeply in love with the entire family.
Our lease of the place had expired in April but I arranged to keep it until the first of October.
We felt warranted, in our improved circumstances, in seeking a better home, amidst refined surroundings, and had concluded to make a change in the fall. We did not want to give up country life. My wife and I enjoyed it and we knew it was best for the children. Our desire was for a house with modern conveniences, neighbors, pleasant, cultured people whose society we could enjoy.
On my trips to and from the city I had observed from the car window a section of country not far from where we were then residing, and as the few houses I could see were modern, the elevation high and beautifully wooded, we thought it worth while to investigate.
With my wife I drove there one afternoon and we were both surprised and delighted at what we saw.
A gentleman of wealth had purchased many hundreds of acres of land, and after building for himself a handsome home had commenced development of the property for residences of the better class.
There was nothing of the cheap real estate scheme about the place. The owner would sell or rent only to such people as he deemed desirable.
Although the water supply and sewerage system had been established, miles of roads built, a handsome railroad station erected, and a large Casino in course of erection, there were at that time but six houses completed.
Knollwood was to be a park, and as a unique feature no two houses were to be alike. How successful it has been is shown by the fact that to-day there is no more beautiful or flourishing residence park in the vicinity of New York.
As a result of our visit to the property, an arrangement was made for a house to be built for us on a lease of three years, and we were permitted to select the plans of the house, its site, and the interior decorations. Work was to commence at once and possession given us in April, 1879.
Not wishing to spend another winter where we were, we returned to Brooklyn and remained with my parents until the new house was completed.
When we commenced our packing preparatory to leaving the little farm, as we called it, there was a feeling akin to homesickness.
We had been very happy and great blessings had come to us while there. The dear little baby girl, my health, prosperity in worldly affairs—all this and the thought of how the place had been a sort of lovers' retreat, where I had my wife all to myself most of the time, made the homely old farm-house seem something sacred.
We could not but feel a little sentimental over it all.
The garden, the arbor-vitae hedge, planted with my own hands, and now tall and almost impenetrable, the play-house which I built in the orchard for the children, all had to be visited with a feeling of saying good-by to old friends.
There was hardly a summer for years after that we did not at least once drive down the old lane and look over the place where our country life had commenced, and I shall have for it always a tender spot in my memory.
When, at the end of the year, the books were closed at the office, I was pleased to find that I had made a little over twelve thousand dollars.
It had taken me eight years to catch up to the point where Mr.Derham left off, but I had finally succeeded.
As I was but twenty-eight years of age, I congratulated myself with a little self-conceit that was perhaps pardonable.
It had certainly been a hard up-hill fight.
As the new house was approaching completion we found much pleasure in occasionally going to Knollwood for an hour or two, to look it over.
Our having selected the plans and site made it seem as if it belonged to us and our interest in its development was great. The kitchen was in the basement. On the first floor was a square entrance hall opening into parlor, dining-room, and library. There were four bed-rooms and bath-room on second floor and above that a maid's room and attic.
While the house was not large the rooms were all of comfortable size. For heating, in addition to the furnace, there were several open fire-places, a great desideratum in any house. In its exterior the style was something of the Swiss cottage.
The grounds consisted of about an acre in lawn with a few flower-beds and a number of fine trees.
In April we moved into the new house. Some additions had been made to our furnishings, and when all was in order we agreed that in our eyes there was no other house in the world quite so pretty.
It was a case of "contentment is wealth," and we were perfectly contented.
[Illustration: "Sunnyside"]
Of course we must have a name for the place. Every one does that, in the country, and we were not to be the exception. One of our boundary lines was a brook and we decided on "Brookside Cottage."
The stationery and visiting cards were so engraved, when, alas, a few weeks later our brook dried up and we had to select another name.
At this time, where the brook had been, a new line of sewer was laid, and my wife suggested "Sewerside," but after punishing her with a kiss for her bad pun, I suggested "Sunnyside."
The name was adopted and to this day the place has retained it.
"Sunnyside" was not the only house in Knollwood completed that spring. There were several others, and when the summer commenced there resided there a little community of delightful, congenial people. Most of them were of about my age, and with the exception of the owner of the Park, of moderate means. Probably at that time I enjoyed a larger income than any of them.
Wealth cut no figure in that community. We all respected each other and met on the same social plane, regardless of individual means.
While we liked them all, we became particularly intimate with two of our immediate neighbors, the Woods and the Lawtons, who had come to the Park at the same time as ourselves.
This intimacy became a strong and close friendship, so much so that it was very like one family. The children of the three families fraternized and almost every disengaged evening found the parents gathered together in some one of the three houses, which were connected by private telephone.
In its social elements Knollwood was peculiarly fortunate. The people were bright and entertaining. In a number of instances musical talent, both vocal and instrumental, was of a high order, and there was also a good deal of amateur dramatic talent.
Taking this combination and an inspiration on the part of each individual to do what he or she could for the entertainment of all, one can readily see that much pleasure might be derived in Knollwood society.
The facilities for making use of the talent we possessed were excellent. We had a beautiful casino, with a stage well equipped with scenery, and during the first four years of our residence there more than fifty performances were given, each followed by a dance. A Country Club was organized for out-door sports and there was something going on continually.
The life at Knollwood in those days was to my mind ideal.
The beauty of the place, its facilities and conveniences are still there, improved and increased. Its social life, now on a totally different scale, has expanded to meet the tastes of the people. With the large increase in population came the break in the circle. Cliques defining the difference, not in culture or refinement, but in wealth, have developed. The old charm of every resident my friend, is lacking. Gossip, unknown in the early days, showed its ugly head in later years.
It is the way of the world. All struggle to gain wealth. Those that succeed, with but few exceptions, sneer at those who are left behind, and what does it all amount to in the end? One can enjoy it but a few years at most.
I have in my career come into more or less intimate contact, socially and in a business way, with many men of great wealth. In some instances, where the wealth was inherited, the past generation had paid the price of its accumulation, but I doubt if any of those who have given up the best of their lives in the struggle to attain their present position and wealth, now that they possess it, get out of it anything like the degree of happiness and contentment that was in evidence in those early years in Knollwood.
And what has it cost them?
Long years of struggle and worry, continual mental strain that has prevented the full enjoyment of home life, a weakened physical condition, old age in advance of its time, and more, far more than all this, in at least one instance of which I have personal knowledge, and I presume there have been many others, the disruption of a family that would never have occurred had the husband given less time to his struggle for wealth and more to the wife whom he had vowed to love and cherish.
She, poor, beautiful woman, left much to herself evening after evening while her husband was at his club or elsewhere planning with allies his huge business operations, fell a victim to a fiend in the guise of a man.
When that husband looks at his children, deserted by their mother, he must think that for his millions he has paid a stupendous price.
Wealth brings with it fashionable life. Of what horrors the fashionable life of New York is continually giving us examples, the columns of the daily papers bear witness.
Is the "game worth the candle"?
My business in 1879 returned me nearly sixteen thousand dollars, a satisfactory increase over the previous year.
My wife and I had become much attached to "Sunnyside," and as the owner was willing to sell it to us for just what it had cost to build, plus one thousand dollars for the land, we bought it. We then spent eleven hundred dollars in improvements, and when finished our home had cost us sixty-five hundred dollars.
It was certainly a very attractive place for that amount of money. To be sure it was only an unpretentious cottage, but a pretty one, and the interior had been so successfully though inexpensively treated in decorations and appointments that the general effect attracted from our friends universal admiration.
As our neighbor, Charlie Wood, put it on his first inspection, we had succeeded in making a "silk purse out of a sow's ear." His remark rather grated on us, but it was characteristic of the man and we knew it was simply his way of paying us a compliment.
In January a broker in the trade, not a competitor for the reason that he was a specialist in a line that I did not cover, gave me a large order, for future delivery.
He told me it was a purchase on speculation for himself and another party whom he named, and that not only should I have the resale but they would give me one-eighth interest in the transaction.
Up to that time I had never been interested to the extent of a single dollar in the markets in which I dealt as a broker nor had I any speculative clientage, I was certain the operation would be successful provided they did not hold on for too large a profit and overstay the market. I accepted the order as he offered it, but stipulated that I should have the right at any time to close out my interest in the deal.
The purchase was made and a few weeks later long before time for delivery, I found a buyer who would pay a clear ten thousand dollars profit. In vain I urged them to accept it. Then with their knowledge I sold my interest and secured my twelve hundred and fifty dollars.
They held on, took delivery at maturity, and finally after several months I resold for them at a loss of nearly forty thousand dollars.
In the negotiations I came into personal contact only with the broker. The other party was a wealthy Hebrew merchant then doing business on Broome Street. He was at that time supposed to be worth possibly a million and was just getting in touch with my line of trade. A few years later he became a most important factor and still later was allied with Standard Oil interests.
At his death in 1902 he left to his heirs many millions of dollars. I attended his funeral and truly mourned and respected the man, for while for many years we were active business competitors, in the days of trouble he was one of the very few ready to extend a helping hand.
In the first three months of 1880, including my profit in the transaction just mentioned, I made six thousand dollars. I was now in a position where if hard times came I could accept them with reasonable complacency.
My success had broadened my views and given me a keener insight into the possibilities of my business. I became convinced that in earning capacity it was about at the top notch.
There were several features then becoming prominent that led me to this conclusion. The Standard Oil Company had absorbed all the refining concerns and had then established its own broker. It paid him a salary for his services and he paid to the Company the brokerages he collected from the sellers. I had been doing a large business with the constituent companies which would now cease. The leading firm with which my relations had been most intimate had taken into its employ as a confidential man my most active competitor and I knew his influence would work against me to the utmost. New competitors, young men who had been clerks in the trade, were coming into the field. Then a movement looking to a reduction in the rate of brokerage was being agitated.
I had no doubt about being able to keep up with the procession, but it looked to me as if the procession would be too slow and if it was to be a funeral march I proposed to look on rather than take part. I had been through the stages of creeping, then walking, and now I wanted to run.
The problem was before me and I thought I saw the solution.
The business being done by brokers covered several different articles. The most important of these, that is, the one on which the most brokerages were earned, happened to be the one article that the Standard Oil Company was the largest buyer of, that the leading firm was most interested in, and that the talk of reduced brokerage was aimed at.
My plan was to drop that entirely and also everything else except one particular staple commodity in which I would be a specialist. I had for two or three years done a large business in this and had made a profound study of that branch of the trade.
It was yet in its infancy but I believed in a rapid and important growth. How rapid that growth has been is shown by the fact that in 1879 the consumption in the United States was less than five thousand tons. It has increased every year since and is now thirty-six thousand tons per year.
Another point that decided me on the commodity I was to handle exclusively was its adaptability to speculative operations. In London for many years it has been a favorite medium of speculation and I believed I could build up a speculative clientele and thereby largely increase my brokerage account.
As business continued good through the spring and early summer I concluded to delay my action until the fall. Each month I was adding to my surplus and there was no need for haste.
It was the middle of July. After a most oppressively hot and a very busy day in the city I returned home with a feeling of weariness that was unusual, my head ached badly. At dinner I ate but little and then retired early. My wife petted and nursed me until I had fallen asleep. After a restless night I was too ill to rise in the morning.
Our physician was called in and his first diagnosis was nothing serious, but he advised my remaining at home for a day or two and taking a much-needed rest.
Twenty-four hours later he pronounced my illness congestion of the brain.
Ten years of close application to business, much of the time under a great nervous strain and no rest, had brought its day of reckoning.
For nearly three weeks I was confined to my bed.
My wife, aided by our faithful physician, Doctor Burling, who often when I was delirious remained with me throughout the night, nursed me with constant and untiring devotion. While she accepted the efficient aid of one of my sisters, she would not consent to a trained nurse, so long as the doctor would advise it only on the ground of relief to her.
Her love for me was all-absorbing and no hand but hers should administer to my wants. For hours at a time she stroked the poor tired head, until her gentle caresses soothed me to brief intervals of rest.
How she stood the strain, especially when as the crisis drew near life seemed slowly but surely ebbing, I do not know. I never opened my eyes that they did not rest on her sweet face, smiling, cheerful, her own fears hidden from me that she might give me the courage which the doctor said must be maintained.
Slowly and when it seemed as if the end was nigh, the tide turned—the brain cleared, restful sleep came, and my life was saved.
Doctor Burling had done everything that science, skill, and faithfulness could accomplish, but the nurse was the Guardian Angel who brought me out of the Dark Valley just as its shadows were closing around me.
My convalescence was slow, but as soon as my strength permitted, with my wife I went to Block Island for a few weeks. There I gained rapidly.
We took no part in the hotel amusements but kept to ourselves, spending our days reading and chatting on the shore in the shade of the bluffs and retiring early for long restful sleep at night.
Block Island is a beautiful spot and we enjoyed our visit there greatly. It is to be expected that at a summer hotel in the height of the season, if a young couple go off day after day by themselves, never mingling with the other guests nor participating in their pleasures, that some comment would be excited, but we were much amused when, the day before we left for home, the major-domo came to us and said, "I understand you are going to leave us to-morrow and I want to tell you, before you go, that the people in the house call you the model bridal couple of the season"—and we had three children at home!
On my return to the office early in September I found it was time for me to perfect my plans for the contemplated change in my business. During my absence very little money had been made. My clerk, I at that time employed but one, had done his best, but as my business was a personal one, my presence was necessary to its success.
The change entailed much labor. Lists of names must be compiled, covering all the buyers in the United States and Canada. These had to be prepared with great care and arranged in classes. There were consumers, dealers, railroad purchasing agents. There were the small and the large buyers in each class. To get these lists required many hours spent in searching through "Bradstreet's," and it was a work I could not delegate and consequently had it to do myself.
The various forms for daily mail quotations were to be arranged and printed, also a complete telegraph code for the use of customers.
Then, too, a vast amount of statistical information had to be gone over and a basis taken for the circulars which I meant to issue to the trade semimonthly. The detail seemed endless, but by the first of October all was in readiness and the change was made.
Before the month was over I became convinced that my move had been a wise one. I had practically no competition worthy of the name and I was finding new customers every day.
So successful was the business from the start that with the help of those last two months of the year my income in 1880 was twenty-one thousand dollars, and this notwithstanding the fact that I had lost two months through my illness. It was really the result of but ten months' business.
On the ninth of November when I returned from the city it was to find that our family circle had again widened, and at "Sunnyside" all hearts were open in joyful greeting to another little girl.
My wife as she returned my caress and exhibited to me this fourth jewel in her crown, noticed that I was agitated, and with the smile and the intention of calming me with a joke, said, "Darling, are not two pair a pretty good hand"? We neither of us play poker, but I could appreciate the joke.
What a joyful holiday season we had that year!
As we drank at our Christmas dinner a toast to the health, happiness, and prosperity of all our friends, we felt that we ourselves were getting our full share.
My wife, beloved by all, had become a sort of Lady Bountiful to the poor of a neighboring village, and the thought of the many others we had made happy that day added zest to our pleasure.
Elation expressed my feeling at the result of the change in my business. The material benefit already was demonstrated and the mental satisfaction at the correctness of my judgment added much to the pleasure of reaping the profit.
Apparently 1881 was to be a banner year.
My firm was growing rapidly into prominence. From Maine to California and throughout the Canadas we were now well known.
I say we, for as my readers will remember, in 1876 when my partner, Allis, retired, I continued doing business as W. E. Stowe & Company, though I never after had a partner and all acts of or reference to the firm will be understood as relating to myself individually.
Our statistics, in the absence of any official figures, were accepted by the trade as an authority, and in the foreign markets also, so far as the American figures were concerned, they were regarded in the same light.
As the business between London and New York was large and I foresaw that it must increase greatly I was desirous of having a London connection. A dozen reputable firms were open to me but I was ambitious. I looked forward to become the leading firm in the trade in this country and I wanted a connection with the leading firm in London.
This firm had been for some months consigning occasional parcels to a large banking house. The bankers sold through any broker. A share of the business came to our office but it was unimportant. I wanted it all, not so much for its present as for the future value.
So far as this market was concerned I knew we were in a position that was unique.
We enjoyed the confidence of the large importers and dealers and were in close touch with the consuming trade throughout the country. Our facilities for getting information as to stocks in the aggregate and individually were unequalled. The large consumers posted us in advance of what their requirements would be for certain periods. If the large city dealers were manipulating the market it was done through our office and we knew their plans.
Information of this character must be of value to the London firm and we knew it was not getting it.
That was my keynote.
I wrote the firm a newsy, chatty market letter, saying nothing of doing business together. After that first letter I never let a mail steamer leave New York that did not carry a letter to the firm from our office.
While those letters gave enough information to show the recipient our position in the trade, I wish to emphasize the fact that not one word was written that in the remotest degree was a violation of any confidence reposed in us by our New York friends.
The weeks went by and we received from the London firm—nothing. Finally came a brief communication acknowledging with thanks our various letters and requesting their continuance, ending with an offer, if at any time they could be of service to us in the way of giving information on their market, to reciprocate.
To this I replied with a request that the monthly European statistics, which the firm published, should be cabled us at the end of each month that we might publish them with ours.
This request was complied with, and thereafter we kept up our letters, always endeavoring to make them more interesting and occasionally receiving brief letters in acknowledgment.
This one-sided correspondence continued for several months, then I wrote that we purposed forming a London connection and would much prefer to do so with their firm if open for it. If not, we should of course be compelled to cease our advices and make an arrangement with some other firm.
As I had hoped, the taste of our quality had encouraged an appetite for more, and after brief negotiations an arrangement was entered into by which we controlled the firm's business in the American markets.
It proved a very profitable arrangement for both firms.
With this London connection secured I had taken the last step necessary for doing business on the broadest scale.
The wheel had been built starting from the hub, the tire was elastic, and as the spokes lengthened the circumference became so large that we were gathering force with each revolution and all the business in sight was coming our way.
Up to this time I had done nothing in the way of seeking speculative customers and I now began to think seriously of doing so.
The field was large, the only difficulty was to get people who had been accustomed to speculate in grain, cotton, and petroleum to try a new commodity. I knew the opportunities for money making, but it was necessary to convince the speculator that the chances of gain were better, the possibility of loss less than in the well-known great speculative commodities of the age.
I commenced the preparation of educational literature with which I meant to circularize the country. I did not want the small fry, the little speculator with only a few hundreds or thousands of dollars. What I was after was men of financial ability and the nerve to go into large operations and see them through to a finish.
Before I made a move, our first speculative client put in an appearance.
He was in the trade, senior partner of the largest firm in Baltimore, and no argument from us was necessary. Calling at the office he gave us an order for his individual account, the transaction to be carried in our name.
It was not a large order, the margin he deposited with us being but two thousand dollars.
When the transaction was closed and we returned him his margin, we had the pleasure of including in our cheque thirty-nine hundred dollars profit, after deducting our commissions, which amounted to five hundred and seventy-five dollars.
This experience gave me a hint I was quick to take. If an individual member of one firm in the trade would speculate, why not members of other firms? The ethics of the case, the propriety of a partner speculating on his own account in a commodity in which his firm was dealing, did not concern me.
Here was a field I had not counted on and I determined to explore it before going to the general public.
I had one hundred letters mailed in plain envelopes to individual members of the larger firms which we were regularly selling. The result astonished me. This was in December, 1881, and before the following February sixty-seven of the men written to had accounts on our books.
Some of the novel experiences in this branch of the business will be related in a later chapter.
As I had anticipated, 1881 was a banner year. My profits were nearly twenty-eight thousand dollars.
"Sunnyside" had become too small for us.
Our life had been so happy there we could not bear to think of leaving it. I had an architect look the house over and prepare plans for an extensive addition.
This was done, though he strongly disadvised it. I could not but admit the force of his argument that it was foolish, regarded from an investment point of view, to expend on the place the amount I contemplated. Far better to sell and build a new house was his opinion.
Then we talked of moving the house to another plot and building on the old site. To this there were two objections. The site was not suitable for the style of house I wanted and there was too little land, with no opportunity to add to it as the land on either side was already occupied.
The matter was settled by the appearance of a buyer for "Sunnyside," at a price that paid me a fair profit, and I made the sale subject to possession being given when the new house was completed.
[Illustration: "REDSTONE"]
Within a stone's throw of "Sunnyside" was a plot of land, a little less than two acres in extent that we had always admired. I bought the land for five thousand dollars and the architect commenced at once on the plans.
We thought that the new house was to be our home for the rest of our days and naturally the greatest interest was taken in every detail. The first plans submitted were satisfactory, after a few minor changes, and ground was broken on July 2d, 1881. How we watched the progress.
From the time the first shovelful of earth was taken out for the excavations until the last work was finished, not a day passed that we did not go over it all.
"Redstone," taking its name from the red sandstone of which it was built, was, and is to-day, a fine example of the architecture then so much in vogue for country houses.
The Matthews House on Riverside Drive, New York City, so much admired, was designed by the same architect and modelled after it.
Standing on a hill its three massive outside chimneys support a roof of graceful outlines and generous proportions. From the three second-story balconies one gets views near and distant of a beautiful country. The fourteen-feet wide piazza on the first floor, extending across the front and around the tower, with its stone porte cochere and entrance arch is most inviting. With grounds tastefully laid out, driveways with their white-stone paved gutters, cut-stone steps to the terraces, great trees, and handsome shrubs the place was a delight to the eye, and at the time, of which I write there was nothing to compare with it in that section.
Through a massive doorway one enters a hall of baronial character, thirty-three feet long, eighteen feet wide, and twenty-one feet high, finished in oak with open beam ceiling and above the high wainscot a rough wall in Pompeian red.
Two features of the hall are the great stone fireplace with its old-fashioned crane and huge wrought iron andirons and the stained glass window on the staircase, a life-sized figure of a "Knight of Old."
This hall was illustrated in Appleton's work on "Artistic Interiors."
On the right is the spacious drawing-room in San Domingo mahogany and rich decorations in old rose and gold, and back of it the large library in black walnut with its beautifully carved mantel and numerous low book-cases. Then came the dining-room in oak and Japanese leather and a fountain in which the gold fish sported—but enough of description. This was our home and when we had completed the appointments they were tasteful and in keeping.
We moved in on April 28th, 1882. Here then we were settled for life, so we said. If a new painting was hung or a piece of marble set up we had the thought it was there to remain.
We loved the house and everything in it. We loved the friends we had made. Our life was all that we would have it—peaceful, happy, contented.
[Illustration: "REDSTONE"—LIBRARY]
My craving for books has always been a trait in my character and with the commencement of my prosperity I began to form a library. I had no taste for rare editions.
My model for a book is convenient size for reading, good type and paper, fine binding, and illustrations, if any, the best. My wife was in full accord with me in this as in everything. Wedding anniversaries, birthdays, and Christmas always brought me from her something choice in literature and I soon had hundreds of fine volumes of standard works on my shelves.
They were not allowed to remain there untouched. We both read much and aimed to cultivate the taste in our children.
For autographs, I cared not as a collector, but I love to read a book that has, bound in, an autograph letter from the author or from some character in the book. Many of my volumes were so honored.
Of course in the case of authors of a past generation, these letters were purchased, but most living authors of my time were good enough to respond to my requests with a personal note and with some of them I enjoyed an acquaintance.
When we moved to "Redstone" we had been residents of Knollwood three years, long enough to become thoroughly acquainted with the characteristics of each individual in our social circle.
While with all our relations were cordial, it is essential in this narrative to refer only to the three families with which we formed a close friendship. These were the Woods, Lawtons, and the new owners of "Sunnyside," the Slaters.
Frank Slater was a partner of Mr. Wood. Without exception he was the most attractive man I have ever met. Possessing in a high degree every attribute of a true gentleman, he had withal a genial, winning way that was peculiarly his own and made every one who knew him his friend. We were drawn to each other at once and soon became most intimate. His wife, a woman charming in every way, became my wife's intimate friend.
Charlie Wood was rather a queer combination. That we were fond of him and he of us there is no doubt, but he was a man of moods. Intellectual, a good talker, and an unusually fine vocalist, his society as a rule was very enjoyable, but there were times when in a certain mood he was neither a pleasant nor cheerful companion.
Perhaps a remark which he made to me one day at "Sunnyside" will show better than anything I can write the true inwardness of the man.
We were discussing some business affair of his, over which he was feeling blue. I was trying to cheer him up, when he said, "I tell you, Walter, I could be perfectly contented and happy, no matter how little money I had, if everybody around me had just a little less."
George Lawton, a jolly, good-natured fellow, was liked by everybody, and his wife, a pleasant, cheerful, good-hearted little woman, was equally popular.
The Lawtons were the least prosperous of any of our little circle. George was always just a little behind in his finances, but so constituted that this did not worry him.
The time will come in this narrative when the author will be upon the defensive and he deems it necessary that his readers should fully understand certain relations existing within this circle of friends, even though, that they shall do so, he is compelled to violate the scriptural injunction, "Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." [Footnote: Under ordinary conditions the author would never think of advertising to the world the good that he has done. Before the conclusion of this narrative there will be much that is far removed from the ordinary. Errors to atone for, misunderstandings to explain, false innuendos and charges to indignantly deny and disprove. It is the narrative of a life and the good in that life is certainly a part of it. In later chapters, when certain matters are set forth, my readers will be good enough to bear this in mind.]
The Woods and Lawtons came to Knollwood together. They were intimate friends before that time. Not one detail of the affairs or life of one but was known to the other. It was the same as one family only under two roofs.
George Lawton was always in need of money. His expenditures exceeded his earnings year after year and he borrowed to make up the deficiency. Wood was as well able as I to loan him the money and as a closer and an older friend should have been the one to do it.
On the train one day, when sitting together he said to me, "Walter, how much does George owe you"? To which I replied, "Oh, a small matter." It was at that time nearly six hundred dollars. "Well," he said, "I am glad you can help him out, but he don't get into me more than two hundred dollars; that's the limit, for I doubt if he ever pays it back."
I went on with my loans just the same, and when, some years later, the family left Knollwood he owed me more than two thousand dollars that had been borrowed in small amounts.
At one time George was fortunate in getting an interest in a patent motor for use on sewing machines. He told Wood all about it and of one weak feature in connection with the battery, which, however, he thought was about overcome.
Without telling George, Wood at a small expense employed a man who succeeded in perfecting the battery, then going to George, said: "You cannot use your motor without my battery. I will turn it over to you for half your interest."
There was no escape, and though George made some thousands out of his interest his profits were cut in half by the shrewdness of his friend.
He never said much about it, but his mother, who resided with him, was very outspoken on the subject.
In 1883, in connection with my business, I established a trade journal. After running it a few years I could no longer spare the time. It was then paying about eighteen hundred dollars a year profit and was capable of doing better. I offered it to George Lawton, telling him if he ever felt he could pay me a thousand dollars for it, to do so.
The day I turned it over to him I gave him a few hundred dollars, remittances for advertising received that morning. In a few years he sold the paper, and in one way and another he secured twelve thousand to fifteen thousand dollars out of it.
He never paid me one dollar for the property, nor did I demand it of him.