Chapter II


The growth of young Frank Algernon Cowperwood was through years of what
might be called a comfortable and happy family existence. Buttonwood
Street, where he spent the first ten years of his life, was a lovely
place for a boy to live. It contained mostly small two and three-story
red brick houses, with small white marble steps leading up to the front
door, and thin, white marble trimmings outlining the front door and
windows. There were trees in the street--plenty of them. The road
pavement was of big, round cobblestones, made bright and clean by the
rains; and the sidewalks were of red brick, and always damp and cool. In
the rear was a yard, with trees and grass and sometimes flowers, for
the lots were almost always one hundred feet deep, and the house-fronts,
crowding close to the pavement in front, left a comfortable space in the
rear.

The Cowperwoods, father and mother, were not so lean and narrow that
they could not enter into the natural tendency to be happy and joyous
with their children; and so this family, which increased at the rate of
a child every two or three years after Frank's birth until there were
four children, was quite an interesting affair when he was ten and they
were ready to move into the New Market Street home. Henry Worthington
Cowperwood's connections were increased as his position grew more
responsible, and gradually he was becoming quite a personage. He already
knew a number of the more prosperous merchants who dealt with his bank,