L. A. Abbott

“ I had never been brought before a justice for a preliminary examination; never bound over for trial; and now it transpired that old Scheimer, a Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, had the power to put me in jail, put me in irons, and subject me to long months, perhaps years of imprisonment. I had something to occupy my thoughts now, and for the remaining period of my jail life.
Next came a new dodge of the Scheimers, the object of which was to show that Sarah’s marriage to me was no marriage at all, thus leaving her free to marry any other man her family might force upon her. ”

“ One day when Hall and I were working together in the prison, Deputy Warden Morey came in and said something to him, and in a moment the man sprung upon him. He had secured somehow, perhaps he had picked it up in the yard, a pocket knife, and with this he stabbed the Warden, striking him in the shoulder, arm, and where he could.
Morey was a man sixty-five years of age, and he made such resistance as he could, crying out loudly for help. I turned, ran to Hall, and with one blow of my fist knocked him nearly senseless; then help came and we secured the mad man. ”

“ When we reached Water Gap I found an old acquaintance in the landlord of the hotel, and I told him where I was going, and what I hoped to do. He knew the Scheimers, knew all that had happened eleven years before, and he told me that Sarah had married again, seven years ago, and was the mother of two more children. She lived on a farm, half a mile from Oxford, and her husband who had married her for her money, and had been urged upon her by her parents, was a shiftless, worthless, drunken fellow. The boy—my boy—was alive and well, and was with his mother. ”

“ Now, this is what you must do; you must see her alone and tell her my plan; here, take this diamond ring; she knows it well; manage to let her see it on your finger; then tell her that if she is willing to leave home and marry me, I will be in the woods half a mile above her house to-morrow afternoon at 5 o’clock, with a horse and buggy ready to carry her to Belvidere. If she will not, or dare not come, give her the ring, and tell her we part, good friends, forever. ”

“ As Sarah drew near she kissed her hand to me and came up to the wagon. “Are you ready to go with me?” I asked. “I am, indeed,” was her reply, and I put out my hand to help her into the buggy. But the third woman caught hold of her dress, tried to prevent her from getting in, and began to scream so as to attract attention at Sarah’s brother’s house. I told the woman to let her go, and threatened her with my whip. “Get away,” shouted Boston Yankee, who had come upon the scene. “Drive as fast as you can; never mind if you kill the horse.” ”

“ I had my old resources of recipes, medicines and my profession, and these I used, and had plenty of opportunity to use, to the best advantage. I could have settled in San Francisco for life with the certainty of securing a handsome annual income. I never feared coming to want. If I had lost my money and all other resources had failed, I was not afraid to make a horse-nail or turn a horse-shoe with the best blacksmith in California, and I could have got my living, as I did for many a year, at the forge and anvil. ”

“ Prison life at Trenton had broken him down in body as well as in spirit, and he had been ill, some of the time seriously, nearly all the time since he went to Unadilla. The fact that he was entirely innocent of the offence for which he was imprisoned, preyed upon his mind, and with the worst results. As these stories reached me from week to week, I became anxious and even alarmed about him, and at last I left my lucrative business in Augusta and went to New York. I could not well go to Unadilla to visit Henry without seeing his mother, whom I had no desire to see ”

“ I remained in Maine nearly two years, hardly ever going out of the State, except occasionally to Boston on business. Making Augusta my residence and headquarters, I practiced in Portland and in nearly all the towns and cities in the eastern part of the State. During all this time, I behaved myself, in all respects better than I had ever before done in any period of my life. I began to look upon myself as a reformed man ”

“ I ran over to the hotel; ordered my horse to be brought to the door at once, got into the wagon with Henry and told him that Sarah Scheimer’s boy was just across the way, and that I was going to carry him off with us. Henry implored me not to do it, and said it was dangerous. I never stopped to think of danger when my will impelled me. I did not know that at that moment, men who had noticed my excited manner, and who knew I was “up to something,” were watching me from the hotel piazza. ”

“ Her family and immediate friends were violently opposed to the match, thereby showing their good sense. I was also informed that they knew something of my previous history, and I was warned that I had better not undertake to marry the widow. Bless their innocent hearts! I had no idea of doing it. I was daily amazed at my own common sense. My memory was active now; all my matrimonial mishaps of the past, with all the consequences, were ever present to my mind, and never more present than when was in the company of the fascinating widow. ”

“ So I closed up my business in Augusta and Portland, put my money in my pocket, and once more went out into the world on a prospecting tour. My first idea was to go to the far West, and I went to Troy with the intention of staying there a few days, and then bidding farewell to the East forever. The New England States presented no attractions to me; I had exhausted Maine, or rather it had exhausted me; New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts had too many unpleasant associations, if indeed they were safe states for me, with my record to live in, and Connecticut I knew very little about. ”

“ At my solicitation a friend of mine wrote to Trenton to Henry’s mother to come on to New York, and meet me at the Metropolitan Hotel on a specified day, to transact some business. She came, and we met for the first time in several years. We met now simply on business, and there was no expression of sentiment or feeling on either side. We cared nothing for each other. I commended her for her devotion to Henry, and then told her I believed, if the proper efforts were made, he could be pardoned out of prison. I told her what lawyer and other persons to see, and how to proceed in the matter. ”

“ But, evidence or no evidence, with all Worthington against me, conviction was inevitable. The jury found me guilty. The judge promptly sentenced me to three years’ imprisonment in the State Prison, at Charlestown, with hard labor, the first day to be passed in solitary confinement.
This severe sentence fairly stunned me. I was taken back to jail, and the following day I was conveyed to Charlestown with heavy irons on my ankles and handcuffed. No murderer would have been more heavily ironed. We started early in the morning, and by noon I was duly delivered to the warden at Charlestown prison. ”

“ A lawyer came to me and offered to take my case in hand for one hundred dollars, but I had not the money to give him. I then sent to New York for a lawyer whom I knew, and when he came to see me he took the same view of the case that Elizabeth and I did; that is, that the long separation between my first wife and myself, and my presumed ignorance as to whether she was alive or dead, gave me full liberty to marry again. At least, he thought any court would consider it an extenuating circumstance, and he promised to be present at my trial and aid me all he could. ”

“ But by the time I was twelve years old I began to blow and strike in the blacksmith shop, and when I was sixteen years old I could shoe horses well, and considered myself master of the trade. At the age of eighteen, I went into business with my father, and as I was now entitled to a share of the profits, I married the daughter of a well-to-do neighboring farmer, and we began our new life in part of my father’s house, setting up for ourselves, and doing our own house-keeping. ”

“ It was this little circumstance, I think—my chance meeting with my old fellow-prisoner, and my changed circumstances and appearance which put me beyond recognition by him—that prompted me to the somewhat brazen business that followed:
“I only came in to look to-day,” I said to the carpet-dealer; “for the precise sum of money in my pocket at present is eighteen pence, and no more; but if you will cut me off forty yards of that piece of carpeting, and trust me for it, I will pay your bill in a few days, as sure as I live.” ”

“ When we had gone on a mile or two, I asked Sarah what all this meant? She told me that the woman was her brother’s servant; that Mary and herself left her father’s house a little after four o’clock to go over and call at her brother’s; that just before five, when she was to meet me, she and Mary proposed to go out for a walk; that the whole family watched her constantly, and so her brother’s wife told the servant woman to get on her things and go with them. “You, may be sure,” she, added, “that the woman will arouse the whole neighborhood, and that they will all be after us.” ”

“ Of course he was ugly; the wardens and the keepers knew it, and generally kept away from him.
I talked with him more than once, and he told me that with better treatment he should be a better man. “Look at the loads which are put on me every day,” he would say; as if this ball and chain were not as much as I can carry; and this for life, for life! ”

“ Then one of them, who said he was a constable from Easton, showed a warrant for my arrest. What the arrest was for I was not informed. I was taken down stairs, put into a wagon, the men followed, and the horses started in the direction of Easton. By Scheimer’s on the way, and I could see a light in Sarah’s window. I remembered how in, all the Bedlam in the house that morning she still cried out: “I will go with him.” I remembered how, only a few months before, she had been brutally flogged in that very chamber, to “get the devil out of her.” ”

“ From Bennington to Rutland, selling medicines on the way, and at Rutland I intended to stay for some time. My oldest son was there well established in the medical business, and I thought that both of us together might extend a wide practice and make a great deal of money.
No doubt we might have done so, if I had minded my medical business only, and had let matrimonial matters alone. I had just got rid of a worthless woman in New Hampshire with a very narrow escape from State prison. ”