and every summer had some trip,—to Niagara or the White Mountains or the Thousand Isles.[1] When they were little, three or four months of every year was spent in the country, Mr. Carter taking a house in the neighborhood of the city, from which he could go to business every day. He was very fond of little excursions, and in the spring and fall afternoons would take his family to Hoboken, or Staten Island, or High Bridge, or some other rural neighborhood. After Central Park was made, he was a constant visitor there, and his friends would laughingly ask him if he was a Park Commissioner. Both parents made companions of their children to an unusual degree. The father would accompany them to the schoolhouse door on his way to business, and they would go down to his store in the afternoon for the pleasure of walking home with him, and these walks were by no means silent. His daughter remembers only one occasion on which he did not respond to her childish chatter, and that was one morning on the way to school, during the business crisis in 1857. He said, “I can’t talk to you this morning; I have something very important to think about.” The occurrence was so unprecedented as to fill her with amazement, and remained in her mind as something very puzzling until, in after
- ↑ He often told an incident of a trip to the White Mountains in 1852. He was travelling with a party of friends, and stopped over night at St. Johnsbury, Vermont. As he sat on the hotel porch, he noticed that the villagers were making their way along the street towards the church. He asked the landlord what was going on, and was told, “O, just the weekly prayer meeting.” Of course he must go, and a very pleasant gathering it was. Stopping after service to speak to the minister, he was introduced to Governor Fairbanks, an officer of the church. Mr. Carter remarked on the large attendance at an ordinary weekly prayer meeting. “I think,” said the Governor, “every member of our church was present to-night." “No,” said the minister, “there was one absent. Mrs. B― is ill.
