CHAPTER XV. A TRUE WIFE AND HOME, AT LAST.
WHERE WERE ALL MY WIVES?—SENSE OF SECURITY—AN IMPRUDENT ACQUAINTANCE—MOVING FROM MAINE—MY PROPERTY IN RENSSELAER COUNTY—HOW I LIVED—SELLING A RECIPE—ABOUT BUYING A CARPET—NINETEEN LAW—SUITS—SUDDEN DEPARTURE FOR THE WEST—A VAGABOND FOR TWO YEARS—LIFE IN CALIFORNIA—RETURN TO THE EAST—DIVORCE FROM MY FIRST WIFE—A GENUINE MARRIAGE—MY FARM—HOME AT LAST.
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 had learned to let liquor alone, and was consequently in far less, indeed, next to no danger of stepping into the traps in which my feet had been so often caught. I may as well confess it—it was intoxicating liquor, and that mainly, which had led me into my various mad marrying schemes and made me the matrimonial monomaniac and lunatic lover that I was for years. What my folly, my insanity caused me to suffer, these pages have attempted to portray. I had grown older, wiser, and certainly better. I now only devoted myself strictly to my business, and I found profit as well as pleasure in doing it.
What had become of all my wives in the meantime, I scarcely knew and hardly cared. Of course from time to time I had heard more or less about them—at least, a rumor of some sort now and then reached me. About my first and worst wife, at intervals I heard something from Henry, who was still with her, and who frequently wrote to me when he was well enough to do so. Margaret Bradley and Eliza Gurnsey were still carrying on the millinery business in Rutland, and in Montpelier, and were no doubt weaving other and new webs in hopes of catching fresh flies. Mary Gordon, as I learned soon afterwards, was married almost before I had fairly escaped from New Hampshire in my flight to Canada, and she had gone to California with her new husband. Of the Newark widow I knew nothing; but two years of peace, quiet, and freedom from molestation in Maine had made me feel quite secure against any present or future trouble from my past matrimonial misadventures.
I was living in Maine, prudently I think under an assumed name, and as the respectable, and, to my patients and customers, well-known Doctor Blank, I was scarcely liable to be recognized at any time or by any one as the man who had married so many wives, been in so many jails and prisons, and whose exploits had been detailed from time to time in the papers.
Nor, all this while, did I have the slightest fear of detection. I looked upon myself as a victim rather than as a criminal, and for what I had done, and much that I had not done, I had more than paid the penalty. So far as all my business transactions were concerned, my course had always been honorable, and in my profession, for my cures and for my medicines, I enjoyed a good reputation which all my efforts were directed to deserve.
Of course, now and then, I met people in Portland, and especially in Boston, who had known me in former years, and who knew something of my past life; but these were generally my friends who sympathized with my sufferings, or who, at least, were willing to blot out the past in my better behavior of the present. One day in Boston a young man came up to me and said:
“How do you do, Doctor?”
“Quite well,” I replied; “but you have the advantage of me; I am sure I do not remember you, if I ever knew you.”
“You don’t remember me! Why, I am the son of the jailer in Montpelier with whom you spent so many months before you went to Windsor; I knew you in a minute, and Doctor, I’ve been in Boston a week and have got ‘strapped;’ how to get back to Montpelier I don’t know, unless you will lend me five or six dollars which I will send back to you the moment I get home.”
“I remember you well, now,” said I; “you are the little rascal who wouldn’t even go and buy me a cigar unless I gave you a dime for doing it; and then, sometimes, you cheated me out of my money; I wouldn’t lend you a dollar now if it would save you from six month’s imprisonment in your father’s filthy jail. Good morning.”
And that was the last I saw of him.
I was getting tired of Maine. I had been there longer than I had stayed in any place, except in the Vermont State Prison, for the past fifteen years, and I began to long for fresh scenes and a fresh field for practice. I had accumulated some means, and thought I might take life a little easier—make a home for myself somewhere, practicing my profession when I wanted to, and at other times enjoying the leisure I loved and really needed. 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. Certainly I had no intention of trying to settle in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. The west was the place; anywhere in the west.
Here was I in Troy, revolving plans in my own mind for migrating to the west, just as Mary Gordon and I had done in the very same hotel, only a few years before; and in the course of a week I came to exactly the same conclusion that Mary and I did—not to go. I heard of a small farm—it was a very small one of only twelve acres—which could be bought in Rensselaer County, not more than sixteen miles from Albany and Troy. I went to see the place, liked it, and bought it for sixteen hundred dollars. There was a small but good house and a barn on the place, and altogether it was a cheap and desirable property. I got a good housekeeper, hired a man, and began to carry on this little farm, raising garden vegetables and fruit mainly, and sending them to market in Albany and Troy. Generally I took my own stuff to market, and sold medicines and recipes as well, and in Albany I had a first rate practice which I went to that city to attend to once or twice a week. While my man was selling vegetables and fruit—I remember I sold a hundred dollars worth of cherries from my farm the first summer—in the market, I was Doctor Blank receiving my patients at Stanwix Hall, or calling upon them at their residences; and when the day’s work was over, my man and I rode home in the wagon which had brought us and the garden truck early in the morning. On the whole, this kind of life was exceedingly satisfactory, and I liked it.
I made frequent expeditions to Saratoga and to other places not far from home to attend to cases to which I was called, and to sell medicines; and considering that the main object I had in settling in Rensselaer County was rest and more leisure than I had enjoyed for some years, I had a great deal more to do than I desired. Nevertheless, I might have continued to live on my little farm, raising vegetables, picking cherries, and practicing medicine in the neighborhood, had not the fate, which seemed to insist that I should every little while come before a court of justice for something or other, followed me even here. A certain hardware dealer in Albany, with whom I had become acquainted, proposed to buy one of my recipes, and to go into an extensive manufacture of the medicine. He had read and heard of the fortunes that had been made in patent medicines, by those who understand the business, and he thought he would see if he could not get rich in a year or less in the same way.
After some solicitation I sold him the recipe for one thousand dollars, receiving six hundred dollars down, and a promise of the balance when the first returns from sales of the medicine came in. I also entered into a contract to show the man how to make the medicine, and to give him such advice and assistance in his new business as I could. My hardware friend understood his legitimate business better than he did that which he had undertaken, and although be learned how to manufacture the medicine he did not know how to sell it; and after trying it a few weeks, and doing next to nothing, he turned upon me as the author of his misfortunes and sued me for damages.
Incidental to this, and only incidental, is the following: Shortly after I purchased my property, as I was very fond of calling my little farm, in Rensselaer County, I was in Albany one day when it occurred to me that I wanted a carpet for my parlor. I went to the store of a well-known carpet-dealer, and asked to be shown some of his goods. While I was going through the establishment I came across a man who was industriously sewing together the lengths of a cut carpet, and I recognized in him one of my fellow convicts at Windsor. He, however, did not know me, and I doubt if he could have been convinced of my identity as the wretch who plied the broom in the halls of the prison. To him, as he glanced at me, I was only a well-dressed gentleman whom the proprietor was courteously showing through the establishment in the hope of securing a good customer. 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.”
My frank statement with regard to my finances seemed to attract the attention of the merchant who laughed and said:
“Well, who are you, anyhow? Where do you live?”
I told him that I was Doctor Blank; that I lived in Rensselaer county on a small place of my own; I raised fruit and vegetables for market; I cured cancers, dropsy, and other diseases when I could; sold medicines readily almost where I would; and was in Albany once or twice a week.
“Measure and cut off the carpet,” said he to the clerk who was following us, “and put it in the Doctor’s wagon”
The bill was about a hundred dollars, and I drove home with the carpet. It was nearly six weeks afterwards when I went into the store again, and greeted the proprietor. He had seen me but once before and had totally forgotten me. I told him I was Doctor Blank, small farmer and large medical practitioner of Rensselaer County.
“The devil you are! Why, you’re the man that bought a carpet of me a few weeks ago; I was wondering what had become of you.”
“I’m the man, and I must tell you that the carpet doesn’t look well; but never mind—here’s a hundred dollars, and I want you to receipt the bill.”
“Now,” said I, when he returned the bill to me receipted, “the carpet looks firstrate; I never saw a handsomer one in my life.”
“Well, you are an odd chap, any how,” said the carpet-dealer, laughing, and shaking me by the hand. Almost from that moment we were more than mere acquaintances, we were fast friends. In the course of the long conversation that followed, I told him of my trouble with the hardware man—how I had sold him the recipe; that he had failed, from ignorance to conduct the business properly, and had sued me for damages.
“I know the man,” said my new friend; “let him go ahead and sue and be benefited, if he can; meanwhile, do you keep easy; I’ll stand by you.”
And stand by me he did through thick and thin. The hardware man sued me no less than nineteen times, and for pretty much everything—damages, debt, breach of contract, and what not. With the assistance of a lawyer whom my friend recommended to me, I beat my opponent in eighteen successive suits; but as fast as one suit was decided he brought another, almost before I could get out of the court room. At last he carried the case to the Supreme Court, and from there it went to a referee. The matter from beginning to end, must have cost him a mint of money; but he went on regardless of the costs which he hoped and expected to get out of me at last.
My long and painful experience, covering many years, had given me a pretty thorough knowledge of the law’s uncertainty, as well as the law’s delay, and very early in the course of the present suit, I had quietly disposed of my property in Rensselaer County. I sold the little farm, which cost me sixteen hundred dollars, for twenty-one hundred dollars, and I had had, besides, the profits of nearly two years’ farming and a good living from and on the place. I also arranged all my money matters in a manner that I felt assured would be satisfactory to me, if not to my opponent, and then, following the advice of my friend, the carpet-dealer, I let the hardware man sue and be “benefited if he could.” When, however, the case went finally to a referee who was certain, I felt sure, to decide against me, I took no further personal interest in the matter, nor have I ever troubled myself to learn the filial decision. I made up my mind in a moment and decided that the time had come, at last, when it was advisable for me to go to the West.
Westward I went, towards sunset almost, and for the two following years I led, I fear, what would be considered a very vagabond life. I went to Utah, thinking while I was in Salt Lake City, if they only knew my history there I was sure to be elected an apostle, or should be, at any rate, a shining light in Mormondom—only I had taken my wives in regular succession, and had not assembled the throng together. I pushed across the plains, and went to California, remaining a long time in San Francisco. This may have been vagabondism, but it was profitable vagabondism to me. During this long wandering I held no communication with my friends in the East; friends and foes alike had an opportunity to forget me, or if they thought of me they did not know whether I was dead or alive; they certainly never knew, all the time, where I was; and while I was journeying I never once met a man or woman who had been acquainted with me in the past. All the time, too, I had plenty of money; indeed, when, I returned at last I was richer far than I was when I left Albany, and left as the common saying graphically expresses it, “between two days.” 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.
But I made more money in other and easier ways, and I made friends. In every conceivable way my two years’ wandering was of far more benefit to me than I dreamed of when I wildly set out for the West without knowing exactly where, or for what, I was going. The new country, too, had given me, not only a fresh fund of ideas, but a new stock of health—morally and physically I was in better condition than I ever was before in my life. I had a clear head; a keen sense of my past follies; a vivid consciousness of the consequences which such follies, crimes they may be called, are almost certain to bring. I flattered myself that I was not only a reformed prisoner, but a reformed drunkard, and a thoroughly restored matrimonial monomaniac.
And when I returned, at last, to the East, and went once more to visit my near and dear friends in Ontario County, I was received as one who had come back from the dead. When I had been here a few weeks, and had communicated to my cousins so much of the story of my life as I then thought advisable, I took good counsel and finally did what I ought to have done long years before. I commenced proper legal proceedings for a divorce from my first and worst wife. I do not need to dwell upon the particulars; it is enough to say, that the woman, who was then living, so far from opposing me, aided me all she could, even making affidavit to her adultery with the hotel clerk at Bainbridge, long ago, and I easily secured my full and complete divorce. Now I was, indeed, a free man—all the other wives whom I had married, or who had married me, whether I would or no, were as nothing; some were dead and others were again married. It may be that this new, and to me strange sense of freedom, legitimate freedom, set me to thinking that I might now secure a genuine and true wife, who would make a new home happy to me as long as we both should live.
Fortune, not fate now, followed me, led me rather and guided my footsteps. It was not many months before I met a woman who seemed to me in every way calculated to fill the first place in that home which I had pictured as a final rest after all my woes and wanderings. From mutual esteem our acquaintance soon ripened into mutual love. She was all that my heart could desire. I was tolerably well off; my position was reputable; my connections were respectable. To us, and to our friends, the match seemed a most desirable one. It was no hasty courtship; we knew each other for months and learned to know each other well; and with true love for each other, we had for each other a genuine respect. I frankly told her the whole story of my life as I have now written it. She only pitied my misfortunes, pardoned my errors, and, one bright, golden, happy autumn day, we were married.
In the northeastern part of the State of New York on the banks of a broad and beautiful river, spread out far and near the fertile acres of one of the finest farms in the country. It is well stocked and well tilled. The surrounding country is charming—game in the woods, and fish in the streams afford abundant sport, and the region is far away from large cities, and remote even from railroads. I do not know of a more delightful place in the whole world to live in. On the farm I speak of, a cottage roof covers a peaceful, happy family, where content and comfort always seem to reign supreme. A noble woman, a most worthy wife is mistress of that house; joyous children move and play among the trees that shade the lawns; and the head of the household, the father of the family, is the happiest of thee group.
That farm, that family, that cottage, that wife, that happy home are mine—all mine. I have found a true wife and a real home at last.
My story is told; and if it should suggest to the reader the moral which is too obvious to need rehearsal, one object I had in telling the story will have been accomplished.
THE END.