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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"The Making of an American"


For nothing in all this world is without a purpose, and least of
all what you and I are doing, though we may not be able to make
it out. I got that faith from my mother, and it never put her to
shame, so she has often told me.
Neither did it me. It was in the winter when all our children had
the scarlet fever that one Sunday, when I was taking a long walk
out on Long Island where I could do no one any harm, I came upon
Richmond Hill, and thought it was the most beautiful spot I had
ever seen. I went home and told my wife that I had found the place
where we were going to live, and that sick-room was filled with
the scent of spring flowers and of balsam and pine as the children
listened and cheered with their feeble little voices. The very next
week I picked out the lots I wanted. There was a tangle of trees
growing on them that are shading my study window now as I write. I
did not have any money, but right then an insurance company was in
need of some one to revise its Danish policies, and my old friend
General C. T. Christensen thought I would do.


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