This was a heavy blow to the pride of a man who had achieved a great business success and was a leading citizen in his community. The instinct to seek another field for the fresh start was fortified by the stories of opportunity in the land whose laws had just dealt the blow. He resolved to emigrate to America. I remember vividly the excitement in our household that was provoked by this momentous decision. Whatever may have been the doubts and heartburnings of our parents, to us children all was a joyous vista. We were happy at the thought of travelling to that far land of golden promise and strange people; we had visions only of adventure, and we were the envy of our playmates who were not to share with us the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean or the excitement of life in America. The two eldest brothers and one of my sisters went ahead of us and established a home in Brooklyn. They wrote back their first impressions of New York; its great buildings and its crowded wharves; its masses of busy people hastening through the maze of streets and the novelty (to us) of horse cars pulled through the streets on railroad tracks. These letters gave us fresh thrills of emotion and new material for our active fancies. Then my father abandoned his now unprofitable business, sold his factories and home, packed our household goods and furniture, and possessed of about thirty thousand dollars in cash--all that remained of his fortune--led his wife and remaining eight children upon the expedition. I well remember the journey down the Rhine to Cologne, where we visited the beautiful cathedral before we took the train to Bremen; the solemn interview in the latter city at the offices of the North German Lloyd, where the last formalities were disposed of; and finally settling in our cabins of the slow old steamer _Hermann_ as she put forth on her way across the wide Atlantic. My memories of the eleven-day voyage itself are rather vague. I recall playing around the deck with the other family of children on the ship. The daughter of one of those little playmates is now conducting a private school in New York City which three of my granddaughters attend. I remember, too, that on the stormiest day of our passage, I was proud of being the only child well enough to eat his meals, and that the Captain honoured me with a seat beside him at his table. Now, the newcomer to America, arriving at New York, stands on the deck of a swift liner and is welcomed by the Statue of Liberty and overwhelmed by the vaulting office-buildings springing high into the blue. I shall tell later how I have contributed to the creation of some of them. But on that June day of my arrival, in 1866, I simply felt that one of the momentous hours in my life had come, when I found myself stepping ashore into a vast garden of unlimited opportunities. CHAPTER II SCHOOL DAYS