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he growth of young Frank Algernon Cowperwood was through years of what might be called acomfortable and happy family existence. Buttonwood Street, where he spent the first ten years of hislife, was a lovely place for a boy to live. It contained mostly small two and three-story red brickhouses, with small white marble steps leading up to the front door, and thin, white marbletrimmings 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 thesidewalks were of red brick, and always damp and cool. In the rear was a yard, with trees and grassand sometimes flowers, for the lots were almost always one hundred feet deep, and the housefronts, 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 intothe natural tendency to be happy and joyous with their children; and so this family, which increasedat the rate of a child every two or three years after Frank’s birth until there were four children, wasquite an interesting affair when he was ten and they were ready to move into the New Market Streethome. Henry Worthington Cowperwood’s connections were increased as his position grew moreresponsible, and gradually he was becoming quite a personage. He already knew a number of themore prosperous merchants who dealt with his bank, and because as a clerk his duties necessitatedhis calling at other banking-houses, he had come to be familiar with and favorably known in theBank of the United States, the Drexels, the Edwards, and others. The brokers knew him asrepresenting a very sound organization, and while he was not considered brilliant mentally, he wasknown as a most reliable and trustworthy individual.In this progress of his father young Cowperwood definitely shared. He was quite often allowed tocome to the bank on Saturdays, when he would watch with great interest the deft exchange of billsat 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. Hisfather, pleased at his interest, was glad to explain so that even at this early age-from ten tofifteen-the boy gained a wide knowledge of the condition of the country financially-what a Statebank was and what a national one; what brokers did; what stocks were, and why they fluctuated invalue. He began to see clearly what was meant by money as a medium of exchange, and how allvalues were calculated according to one primary value, that of gold. He was a financier by instinct, and all the knowledge that pertained to that great art was as natural to him as the emotions andsubtleties of life are to a poet. This medium of exchange, gold, interested him intensely. When hisfather explained to him how it was mined, he dreamed that he owned a gold mine and waked towish that he did. He was likewise curious about stocks and bonds and he learned that some stocksand bonds were not worth the paper they were written on, and that others were worth much morethan their face value indicate
