He laughed at what he called my “primitive ideas” and went to look for a cottage, while we stayed in the Sherman House. But for two days he found nothing “fit to live in” and on the third day, said he was going to the North Side. “They tell me,” he added, “it is the aristocratic part of the city, and I suppose rents will be high.”
“Well,” I replied, “we have a saying in England, that we should choose a house beyond our means, dress up to our means, and live below our means.”
About noon he came home satisfied. He had found exactly what he liked—“a new house, just finished, the only brick house on the North Side.”
“Brick!” I exclaimed.
“Yes. So comfortable. Mr. Wadsworth’s big house is just a little nearer the lake, General Butterfield’s directly opposite, and the Ogdens’ not far away. You will like it, Milly.”
“Have you decided to rent it, Robert?”
“I have rented it. After lunch, leave the children with Nora, and let us go to buy the furniture.”
In going through this house, I saw that it was large enough for a family of fourteen, and I proposed that we only furnish at present the rooms we were going to use. Reluctantly Robert agreed to this proposal, and reluctantly also, he submitted to my “primitive ideas” regarding the furnishing. But in two or three days, we had at last a comfortable home, though the little wood cottage had not materialized.
Then Robert rented a small office on Lake Street, and advertised himself as an accountant, and soon appeared to be very busy and very happy. Every night when we were sitting together, he told me wonderful stories about the big fortunes made so rapidly in Chicago, and was so excited over them, I could not help an anxious look at his shining eyes and flushed face. Generally I discredited these reports, and answered, 152 “There is no easy way to wealth, Robert. Don’t believe in impossibilities.”
“They happen every day in Chicago,” he would reply. “I wish that I had come here ten years ago. I should have been a rich man now.”