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,
and because as a clerk his duties necessitated his calling at other
banking-houses, he had come to be familiar with and favorably known in
the Bank of the United States, the Drexels, the Edwards, and others. The
brokers knew him as representing a very sound organization, and while he
was not considered brilliant mentally, he was known as a most reliable
and trustworthy individual.

In this progress of his father young Cowperwood definitely shared. He
was quite often allowed to come to the bank on Saturdays, when he would
watch with great interest the deft exchange of bills at the brokerage
end of the business. He wanted to know where all the types of money came
from, why discounts were demanded and received, what the men did with
all the money they received. His father, pleased at his interest, was
glad to explain so that even at this early age--from ten to
fifteen--the boy gained a wide knowledge of the condition of the country
financially--what a State bank was and what a national one; what brokers
did; what stocks were, and why they fluctuated in value. He began to
see clearly what was meant by money as a medium of exchange, and