The Romance and Tragedy of a Widely Known Business Man of New York Part 9

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.

CHAPTER XII

AN IDEAL LIFE

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 bas.e.m.e.nt. 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 furnis.h.i.+ngs, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "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 punis.h.i.+ng 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 friends.h.i.+p, 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 acc.u.mulation, 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 fas.h.i.+onable life. Of what horrors the fas.h.i.+onable life of New York is continually giving us examples, the columns of the daily papers bear witness.

Is the "game worth the candle"?

CHAPTER XIII

PROSPEROUS DAYS

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.