, impatient, angry, talking of what
must be done soon, or Germany and England would drive the American flag
from the ocean and make us beggars on the seas, humbly asking the ships
of our rivals to give us a share in the trade of the world. To such
disturbing meetings these grave and courteous gentlemen came less and
less as the years went by.

And so that hospitable front door of ours waited long for neighbors.

CHAPTER IV

But if my father was an intruder, a disturber of the peace of these
contented gentlemen, my mother was more and more liked by their wives.
As time wore on they came to our house in the afternoons, upon hospital
and church affairs. And first in the church and then in a private school
near by I grew to be friends with their children.

Across the street from us at the corner there stood a huge, square
brownstone house with a garden and a wide yard around it. Two boys and a
little girl lived here, and about them our small circle centered. Here
we played hockey in winter, part of the yard being flooded for our use;
and in Spring and Autumn, ball, tag, I spy, prisoner's base and other
games. They were all well enough as far as they went, but all were so
very young and tame compared to my former adventures with Sam.
Adventures, that was the difference. These were only games.

I felt poor beside these boys, in this ample yard by their grandfather's
house. I often saw his great carriage roll out of the stable behind the
yard. "Coach," they called it. It had rich silver trimmings and a red
thing called a "crest," and a footman and coachman in top boots. Inside
the house was a butler who was still more imposing, and a lofty room
with spacious windows called the picture gallery. But by far the most
awesome of all was the white-headed grandfather of these boys, who had
been to Europe twenty-eight times and could read and speak "every
language on earth," as I was told in whispers while we peeped in through
his library door. There he sat with all his books, a man so rich he
never even went to his office, a man who had owned not only warehouses
but hundreds of ships and had sent them to every land in the world!
While, as for me, my grandfather was not even alive. I felt poor and
small, and I did not like it.

Besides, these unadventurous boys all put me down as "a queer kid." I
was middling good at most of their games and would get sudden spurts
when I would become almost a leader. But at other times,