Before many months had elapsed a great, bustling street passed
through the very center of the Webber garden, just where Wolfert
had dreamed of finding a treasure. His golden dream was
accomplished; he did, indeed, find an unlooked-for source of
wealth, for, when his paternal lands were distributed into building
lots and rented out to safe tenants, instead of producing a paltry
crop of cabbages they returned him an abundant crop of rent,
insomuch that on quarter day it was a goodly sight to see his
tenants knocking at the door from morning till night, each with a
little round-bellied bag of money, a golden produce of the soil.
The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up, but,
instead of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden,
it now stood boldly in the midst of a street, the grand home of the
neighborhood; for Wolfert enlarged it with a wing on each side, and
a cupola or tea room on top, where he might climb up and smoke his
pipe in hot weather, and in the course of time the whole mansion
was overrun by the chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk
Waldron.
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