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CHAPTER I<p>
CHAPTER II<p>
CHAPTER III<p>
CHAPTER IV<p>
CHAPTER V<p>
CHAPTER VI<p>
CHAPTER VII<p>
CHAPTER VIII<p>
CHAPTER IX<p>
CHAPTER X<p>
CHAPTER XI<p>
CHAPTER XII<p>
CHAPTER XIII<p>
CHAPTER XIV<p>
CHAPTER XV<p>
CHAPTER XVI<p>
CHAPTER XVII<p>
CHAPTER XVIII<p>
CHAPTER XIX<p>
CHAPTER XX<p>
CHAPTER XXI<p>
CHAPTER XXII<p>
CHAPTER XXIII<p>
CHAPTER XXIV<p>
CHAPTER XXV<p>
CHAPTER XXVI<p>
CHAPTER XXVII<p>
CHAPTER XXVIII<p>
CHAPTER XXIX<p>
CHAPTER XXX<p>
CHAPTER XXXI<p>
CHAPTER XXXII<p>
CHAPTER XXXIII<p>
CHAPTER XXXIV<p>
CHAPTER XXXV<p>
CHAPTER XXXVI<p>
CHAPTER XXXVII<p>
CHAPTER XXXVIII<p>
CHAPTER XXXIX<p>
CHAPTER XL<p>
CHAPTER XLI<p>
CHAPTER XLII<p>
CHAPTER XLIII<p>
CHAPTER XLIV<p>
His Family
Title: His Family
Author: Ernest Poole
Release Date: December 20, 2004 [EBook #14396] [Date last updated: April 8, 2005]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIS FAMILY ***
Produced by Rick Niles, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO. , LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. TORONTO
HIS FAMILY
BY ERNEST POOLE AUTHOR OF “THE HARBOR”
New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1917
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1916 AND 1917 BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1917 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1917.
TO M. A.
HIS FAMILY
HIS FAMILY
CHAPTER I
He was thinking of the town he had known. Not of old New York—he had heard of that from old, old men when he himself had still been young and had smiled at their garrulity. He was thinking of a young New York, the mighty throbbing city to which he had come long ago as a lad from the New Hampshire mountains.
A place of turbulent thoroughfares, of shouting drivers, hurrying crowds, the crack of whips and the clatter of wheels; an uproarious, thrilling town of enterprise, adventure, youth; a city of pulsing energies, the center of a boundless land; a port of commerce with all the world, of stately ships with snowy sails; a fascinating pleasure town, with throngs of eager travellers hurrying from the ferry boats and rolling off in hansom cabs to the huge hotels on Madison Square. A city where American faces were still to be seen upon all its streets, a cleaner and a kindlier town, with more courtesy in its life, less of the vulgar scramble. A city of houses, separate homes, of quiet streets with rustling trees, with people on the doorsteps upon warm summer evenings and groups of youngsters singing as they came trooping by in the dark. A place of music and romance. At the old opera house downtown, on those dazzling evenings when as a boy he had ushered there for the sake of hearing the music, how the rich joy of being alive, of being young, of being loved, had shone out of women’s eyes. Shimmering satins, dainty gloves and little jewelled slippers, shapely arms and shoulders, vivacious movements, nods and smiles, swift glances, ripples, bursts of laughter, an exciting hum of voices. Then silence, sudden darkness—and music, and the curtain. The great wide curtain slowly rising….
