Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-06-12
DONALD HARGREAVES' DAUGHTER
BY r. L. CARY, JR.
For the New Orleans Times.

For the New Orleans Times.
Donald Hargreaves, head of the cotton
house of Hargreaves, Wood 81 Co., was
considered by all who knew him to be a
very fortunate man. Beneath his Midas
like touch everything turned to gold, and
whether he chose to speculate in stocks
or futures there waited host to follow
his lead, and to buy when he bought, or
to sell when he sold, for he seemed to
have the knack of buying or selling just
at the proper time. AS my friend, the
insurance magnate on Carondolet street,
would express it, old Donald never came
out of any ventures sat the little end of
the horn;'' but on the contrary, he took
the tide in his affairs at the flood, and so
was borne on the very crest of its rushing
waves to fortune He was nearing the
grave now, but this did not deter him
from the pursuit of gain where he had
first began over sixty years before; and
every morning regularly, just as the
hands of the great clock in the stone
cathedral marked the hour of ten, he en-
tered the open doors of the exchange and
took his seat, valued at 81 900 per year,
the observed of all observers. Here he
would sit, seemingly half asleep, for
hours at time like the great yellow and
black spider at the foot of my little gar
den while the brokers, like a swarm of
hungry flies, buzzed and fluttered around,
but woe to the unlucky fly Tor broker)
that became entangled in the web of
speculation that he had woven about
him, for in an instant the spider awoke
and the unlucky insect found himself
bound hand and foot in. the silvery web
of margins from which he never escaped
until the gold dust had been well brushed
from his crumpled wings.
By his clerks he was looked upon as a
hard man to get along with because of
his exacting ways and methodical bust
ness habits He could not bear to see
even a pen out of place in his counting
room and insisted upon having the edges
of the blotting pads laid flush with the
edges of the desks upon which they were
placed while for desk to be Uttered up
with loose papers was in his estimation
sufficient grounds for the dismissal of the
parties occupying it. By birth he was a
Scotchman. and this perhaps accounted
for the grittiness of his ways, for in his
nature the rough granite of the Scottish
hills seemed largely to predominant, and
the majority of his acquaintance never
saw anything but the rough edge of the
stone. To them the great aim of his life
seemed to be the accumulation of money,
and as the business world at large seldom
bothers its head about laying up treasures
in heaven, where moth and rust do not
corrupt and thieves do not break through
and steal, preferring to invest in govern
ment per cents. as being something cas-
ier to hypothecate, they looked upon this
in old Donald's case as being one of the
ardinal virtues.
Bradstreet's, the well-thumbed Bible of
the commercial world, estimated his
wealth at two millions and hall of dol
lars, and this estimation was not far out
of the way, though it may be stated as
positive fact that the information upon
which it was based never came from old
Donald himself, for he was too Shrewd
business man to advertise the gross
amount of his assets in such fashion.
Indeed, to hear him speak you would
think him to be as poor as a church
mouse, which is, l believe, considered
the poorest thing that the world has yet
discovered, though why | could never
ascertain, for surely in the temple where
the ruler wakes fat and acquires the
sleek, shiny look of well-fed house-dog,
the little mouse should be able to find
enough to Subsist on.
In thinking, however, that the love of
gain was the only love of Donald Har-
greaves' life, the business community
was mistaken, for years before, when a
young man just entering the business
arena, and while the gaunt wolf Poverty
was still swapping and snarling at his
heels, he had, wooed and won blue-eyed
Scotch lassie, whose
X brow were like the snaedrift,
Her neck were like the swan,
An her face it were the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on.
And hand in hand they had started out
to climb life's hill together, and side by
side they had entered the castle of for
tune that stood with its golden doors
wide open upon the summit. Then, just
as it became pleasure to her to live, and
as she was preparing to drink OF LIES red
wine from silver goblets, which she had
never had the time to do before, there
came to her summons to join the innu-
merable caravan of death. Laying down
llfe's burden, she left behind her baby
girl, who now at eighteen years of age,
was the sunbeam of Donald HargreaveS'
home, the one being for whose sake he
still coveted gold, for was it not all to be
hers in the future when he had fallen
asleep, and was laid forest in the family
vault side by side with the wife that had
gone before?
Jean Hargreaves was unlike her father
as the queenly lily is unlike the rough
boulder of rock in whose shadow it grows
and blossoms in its snowy purity. In
appearance she was tall, slender and
graceful, with a face such as one but