CHAPTER XXIX
A SHORT YEAR AND A MERRY ONE
As memory carries me back to 1891, it seems as if it would have been impossible to crowd into a period of twelve months more social pleasures and jolly good times than we had in that year.
In the social life at Knollwood we had ceased to be active. We kept up and enjoyed our intimate friendship, now of more than ten years' duration, with our immediate neighbors; but the personnel of the Park had changed in recent years and with many of the new residents we were not congenial, though on pleasant terms with all.
There was still a good deal of dining, card parties, and entertainments at the Casino, in which we participated, but it was with our New York friends that most of our social life was passed. The circle there had been enlarged by the addition of many pleasant people, although the close intimacy still rested where it had started, with, however, the addition of Mr. and Mrs. William Viedler.
Mr. Viedler, a multi-millionaire at that time, has since largely increased his fortune and is now the controlling interest in a prominent trust of comparatively recent formation. They had been Brooklynites but bought a fine house on Fifth Avenue.
We first met them on the occasion of a dinner given in their honor by Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, to welcome them to New York. Mr. Curtice is a nephew of Mrs. Viedler.
The Caines, although intimate, were not of the inner circle. This comprised Mr. and Mrs. Curtice, Mr. and Mrs. Todd, Mr. and Mrs. Banford, Mr. and Mrs. Viedler, and ourselves. Curtice was our poet laureate, and in a song he composed and sang at a dinner were included these lines:
"Thus from the crowd that gathered then
Has sprung to fame the immortal ten,
And Stowe has been so generous since
That all the crowd have dubbed him Prince."
After that event all our friends referred to the little circle as the "Immortal Ten;" my wife was called Lady Stowe, and I, by right of song, Prince.
It is very difficult to say what we did not do that year in the way of pleasure-seeking, but it is an easy matter to name the chief event.
As guests of Mr. Viedler a party of eighteen went camping in the Maine woods. In every detail the trip was a perfect success. Private car to Moosehead Lake, a banquet fit for Lucullus, prepared by his own chef, en route, exquisite Tiffany menus, and costly souvenirs. Headquarters at Mt. Kineo for a day or two, and then down the West Branch of the Penobscot in canoes, and over the carries until the comfortable camp at Cauquomgomoc Lake was reached. Deer, moose, partridge, and trout were in abundance. Every minute of that delightful outing was filled with pleasure.
Early in the fall we decided to try a winter in New York. The "San Remo," at Seventy-fourth Street and Central Park, West, had just been completed, and I rented three connecting apartments, which gave us parlor, library, dining-room, five bedrooms, and three baths, all outside rooms. I also rented in Sixty-seventh Street a stable, and on the first of October we took possession.
We were more than pleased With the life in town, and I commenced negotiations with Dore Lyon for the purchase of a handsome house he owned at West End Avenue and Seventy-fifth Street. Just as the trade was about to be closed my eldest daughter was attacked with typhoid. She became very ill, and this so alarmed us we concluded to return to "Redstone" in the spring and remain there.
When the holidays drew near the invalid was convalescent, and we opened "Redstone" for a house party. When we returned to New York it was with a feeling of regret.
Business had been good throughout the year. My profits were nearly eighty thousand dollars.