We took a “flat,” as it was called in those days, in an apartment building on the South Side. The Chemistry Department was housed temporarily in a new and very unpretentious apartment house, the rear windows of which commanded a fine view of the rising buildings of the World’s Columbian Exposition. We were just opposite the great Ferris wheel, and watched its growth from birth.
Gertrude was lucky in her choice of a maid of all work, a tall gaunt Irish girl of some forty summers who was a splendid cook, but eccentric. Sarah was innocent as a child of ten and faithful as an old plantation darky. I had bought a tricky apparatus designed to gull the gullible. It was called “The Magic Money-Maker.” A long strip of black cambric was wound up on two parallel rollers, one of which could be turned by a crank, winding up the cloth from its neighbor. You loaded up one side with new five-dollar bills and by feeding strips of white paper in succession between the rollers, out came the bills. It was a perfect optical illusion. I showed it to Sarah, who viewed it with open eyes. Later she came to me holding out an old dollar bill that had been torn in halves and asked hopefully, “Wud the machine mend it?”
“Oh, yes,” I said — and then I remembered that the machine was loaded with five-dollar bills — “but you’ll have to wait a minute as I have to change it for mending”. I couldn’t find a one-dollar bill in the house for some time, but finally located a fairly new one in an old pair of pants. Slipping this into the machine, I was ready for Sarah, and as the torn bill slowly passed into the little black “clothes wringer,” out came a fairly fresh bank note. She was enraptured, rushed off to her room, and presently reappeared with a frayed, moldy, and partly torn document. “An’ cud yer do anything with this, Mister Wud?” “What’s that?” I asked. “Well, yer see, Mister Wud, whin I was leavin’ off wurkin’ for Mrs. Jones in Kansas City, the where I’d bin wurkin’ for her for tin years, Mister Jones, who was in the lumber business, said for me not to be puttin’ the sivin hundred dollars I’d saved up in the savin’s bank, the where I’d be loosin’ it, but to invist it in his business where it wud be safe, and he’d be givin’ me six per cent, the while the savin’s bank wud be givin’ me only three per cent — so I give it to him and he give me this paper.” “Have you ever asked him to return the money?” I asked. “Oh, no”, she said, blushing, “I’d not be after naydin it unless I’d be gittin’ married”.
“The machine is no good for fixing your paper”, I said, “but if you’ll give it to me I’ll see what I can do for you. I’m afraid, though, you may never be able to get your money back.” Sarah burst into tears, and Gertrude tried to comfort her. The paper was a promissory note properly executed, and I took it downtown to my bank. “Pretty hopeless,” the paying teller said, “but we’ll send it in for collection and see what happens.” Within a week I was informed that it had been promptly paid with interest to date, and I took Sarah down to the bank, introduced her to the teller, and had her deposit it all in the savings bank. Good old Jones of Kansas City, I take off my hat to you!
Revelatory too, I think, is Wood’s own description of an evening he spent with a multimillionaire lumber king isolated in the wilds of Wisconsin — whose passion was astronomy. Taken with all its implications, it is a rather beautiful and to me unforgettable story. I should like to have been there that night when Rob was young, nearly fifty years ago.
Here is Wood’s account.
One summer when the term was over we wanted to get out of Chicago before the hot weather, on account of the baby, and so with old Sarah promoted temporarily to the position of nurse, we started off for Twin Lakes, a remote fishing resort in northern Wisconsin. Our itinerary called for a change of cars at 7: 00 p. m. at a railroad intersection. The station was of the boxcar type, and no other house was in sight, nothing but pine woods. As our little train steamed away into the darkening forest we looked for the other train which was to carry us on our way, but there was nothing in sight. The old codger who was ticket agent, telegraph operator, freight and baggage man — and tout for the only hotel in the place, as we learned presently — told us our train didn’t go until next morning, but that there was a hotel up the road a piece.
Gertrude said, “You go along and explore, because it may be worse than the station”.
The baby was crying as I left, and the outlook seemed unpromising, for we were in a wild, unbuilt-up lumber district. Up the hill a few hundred yards away, the hotel loomed through the trees, a huge old ramshackle building with most of the weather-beaten blinds hanging askew on a single hinge. Many windowpanes were broken, and all the rooms in the two upper stories dark. But on the ground floor things were pretty lively. It was Saturday night and the lumberjacks had their weekly pay envelopes. There were bright lights, the sound of a hurdy-gurdy piano, and the thud, thud of lumbermen dancing in heavy boots; men were three deep along the bar, and others of less gay appearance were absorbed in poker. It offered dubious night’s lodging for a young mother and baby. I went away from there and moved along up the road, coming eventually to a high fence which appeared to surround some sort of an estate. There was a lodge or office at the gate and a cue of fifteen or twenty evil-looking men waiting for their pay envelopes, which were being passed out through a window. After the line had been attended to, I approached the window and explained my predicament. The young paying teller told me to come in and sit down, he would see what could be done about it. He was back again in a few minutes with the information that I was to bring my family; that Mr. S------- would take care of us. I hurried back to the forlorn little group sitting on a baggage truck with the news that we were to be house guests of the big boss.
We presently found ourselves being admitted to a mansion by a manservant who announced that dinner would be served in fifteen minutes, and would we like to be shown our room in the meantime? Sarah and the baby had been spirited off to another part of the house.
Downstairs in the dining-room we found prepared for us a splendid dinner of broiled steak, fried potatoes, corn fritters, fruit, and coffee — but no sign of our host. Later, after Gertrude and the baby were safely upstairs, he appeared with a box of cigars and suggested we go out on the lawn where it was cooler. Drinks were brought presently, and it turned out that he was an amateur astronomer! It was a clear night and the stars fairly blazed. He asked question after question and I told him everything I knew — how they measured the velocity of the stars in space by the shift of the lines in the spectrum, about the nebular hypothesis, why some comets return and some do not, and matters of that sort. Every time I suggested bed, he poured another round of drinks and pushed over the box of cigars. It was three o’clock when we finally turned in. He did not appear at breakfast next morning. After a slight delay due to some eccentricity of the baby, we were driven in state to the boxcar station, where we found that the train was being held for us by the request of our host!