For clubs I had little use, though a member of several. For many years I went to the Down-Town Association for luncheon and occasionally after the theatre took my wife to the ladies' dining-room in the Colonial Club for a supper; as a rule, however, we went for these suppers to the Waldorf, where we usually met friends.
With our life in New York commenced a closer intimacy with the Caines, though not of our seeking. They lived nearer to us than any of our friends and their informal calls became very frequent. In a way we liked them. They were chatty, sociable people, though a little too much inclined to gossip. They were not well mated. Both had tempers and the wife had some money, the husband, little or none; consequently there was friction and they lacked the good taste to confine their differences to the privacy of their own apartments. This was a great drawback to our enjoyment of their society.
CHAPTER XXXIV
A SUMMER ON THE SOUND
The winter of 1893 and 1894, crowded with its social pleasures, was soon over, and with the approach of warm weather we sought a summer home.
We had passed so many summers inland, we longed for the water—ocean or sound, preferably the latter. Many places on the Connecticut and Long Island shores were looked at without finding just what we wanted, and it was not until the middle of June that we decided on the W. H. Crossman place at Great Neck, L. I.
The place had many attractions, not the least of which was its accessibility by boat. A sail of an hour twice a day was in itself a great rest for me, and combined with this was a commodious, well-furnished house; fine stable; ample grounds, handsomely laid out; good kitchen garden, planted; plenty of fruit; gardener, and Alderney cows on the place, and best of all a fine bathing beach at the foot of the lawn, with the open Sound before us.
As I sat at dinner I could see the Sound steamers go by on their way east, numerous yachts passing constantly, the Sands Point Light, and across the Sound the New York shore.
We drove to Great Neck from New York on the drag, crossing the
Ferry to College Point.
On one side of us was King's Point, on the other the beautiful residence of Hazen L. Hoyt. The neighbors were friendly and cordial, all very pleasant people; the drives through the surrounding country delightful, over good roads and under great trees that afforded effectual shade from the sun. Later we experienced a few weeks of torment with the mosquitoes, when out of doors, though the house was kept free from the pests. There were days when my poor horses, though coal black, appeared gray, so thickly were they covered with those ravenous mosquitoes.