CHAPTER VII
THE COMING OF THE STORK.
By the first of November I had exhausted all my savings, and from then on knew that if my monthly earnings were insufficient to pay my expenses, I should have to resort to borrowing money to tide me over until better times.
A crisis was coming at home that demanded every effort of mine to have matters there pleasant and comfortable. Under no circumstances must my wife worry.
Thus I thought, but even yet I did not know the magnificent courage of the woman.
Each evening when I returned home she greeted me with the brightest of smiles, and as soon as dinner was over, in our own room, with my arms around her, she insisted on knowing the history of the day in detail.
She grasped the situation thoroughly, caressed and encouraged me, always asserting that everything would come out right in the end. She had no fear and did not worry.
On the nineteenth of November our child was born.
A boy physically perfect. That his lungs were all right I personally could swear to, and what sweet music his crying was to my ears when first I heard it.
A little later I was permitted to enter the room, and did so in great agitation.
As I kissed my wife and held her hand a few minutes, on her face, more lovely than ever in her motherhood, was the same sweet smile and an expression of devotion and love eternal. I looked at the boy, the new rivet in the chain of love that bound us together, and then, after another kiss, went quietly from the room.
Heroes, ancient and modern, the world has developed. Heroines, also have their place in history, but the heroism of a woman in ordinary life, in trials physical and mental, is something to be regarded with awe and reverence.
Our wives! Our mothers! Heroines, all.
The mother recovered quickly her normal state of health and the boy thrived and grew rapidly.
In March, 1874, I was greatly encouraged by a slight improvement in business. I had been through a terribly hard winter, and with the burden of the household on my shoulders had only just succeeded, by the utmost prudence, in making both ends meet. With absolutely no surplus I could not but feel uneasy most of the time.
It was while this was the condition of my finances that my most intimate friend, the son of a man of some means, approached me on the subject of getting his brother, then in Europe, but soon to return, into business.
I knew his brother, but not intimately. I thought he might make a good business man, and it occurred to me that if he was a hard worker and his father was willing to buy him an interest in my business, I might get efficient aid to my efforts and at the same time get a cash surplus to relieve my mind of financial worry, which I knew to be very desirable; for a man who has to worry about the small expenses of living can never do himself full justice in his business efforts.
Another point that induced me to consider the matter was the desire of my wife and myself to go to housekeeping.
The relations with my parents and sisters were most pleasant, but now that we had our boy we felt anxious to set up a modest little establishment of our own, and indeed my mother advised it, though she was sorry to have us leave her.
After several interviews with Mr. Allis we came to an agreement that as soon as his son Thomas arrived from Europe I was to take him into partnership on equal terms and he was to pay me a bonus of three thousand dollars.
A couple of weeks later my sign again came down and a new one went up, reading W. E. Stowe & Co.
With three thousand dollars in the bank my mind was again at ease and we immediately looked for our new home.
We were offered a very prettily furnished, nicely located house, a few blocks from my mother's, for the summer at a very low rent. We decided to take it and not look up a permanent home until fall.
Our housekeeping that summer was a delightful experience and we knew we should never again be satisfied to board. We were fortunate in getting a good maid, the boy kept well, we had a cool summer, business was fairly good and we had soon forgotten the hard times of the previous winter.
Of course, we were prudent in our expenditures, but we lived well and did a little entertaining.
In October we rented and furnished tastefully but inexpensively a three-story and basement house, one of a new row in a pleasant street, not far from the residence of Mr. Sherman.
While we did not own the house, the fact that the contents belonged to us gave us a sense of proprietorship that we had not felt in the house we had recently vacated.
We had enjoyed greatly our shopping for the furnishings and felt very happy in our new home amidst our household gods.
Our efficient maid was devoted to our boy and to her mistress. The housekeeping ran smoothly, and although we already began to talk of the day when we should own our home and of what that home should be, we were entirely contented and happy.
As the winter approached I began to suffer, slightly at first, with muscular rheumatism. Not since the days of childhood, when I had gone through the usual category of children's diseases, had I been really ill. I always had suffered to some extent with neuralgic headaches, inherited no doubt from my mother, who was a great sufferer, and with the advent of the rheumatism these headaches became more frequent and severe.
I did not regard the trouble seriously and I so enjoyed the fond nursing and petting of my wife that the pain brought its own recompense. It soon became evident, however, that I required medical attention.
First one and then another physician was called upon without getting relief, the attack recurring at shorter intervals and each time seemingly more severe. I stood it through the winter, though suffering greatly, and with the warmer weather my health improved.