While his countenance lit up with joy, I had no suspicion of who he was until he said, "I am the man. I am her husband."
"Why didn't you tell me that before?"
"I was 'fraid of bad news if I got any."
"Afraid she was married?"
"Well, it's been mighty nigh three years, an' I couldn't go for a long time off the plantation, after she left."
As she was twelve miles from our school, and by this time it was nearly night, I hastened to inform brother Canfield, a Wesleyan minister, that the older brother of these fugitives was Mary Todd's husband. "Is it possible," he asked, "that Mary's husband has come at last?"
Soon, quite an excitement was produced in our neighborhood over the arrival of Mary Todd's husband. The next morning brother Canfield took him in his buggy to meet his wife and little son he had never seen; and a time of great rejoicing was in the whole neighborhood. As they were married after slave style, brother Canfield solemnized the marriage legally. The minister said we all forgot the black skin, when we saw that couple fly to each other's arms. Surely,
"Skins may differ, but affection
Dwells in black and white the same."
Mary had lived most of the time in the family of Fitch Reed, of Cambridge. They soon had a home for their mother, with her two little granddaughters, and were all happy, industrious, and highly respected.
One of the common trials of life, to mar our happiness in our family-like institution (February 23d) was the listless waywardness of some of our dear students, in a determined purpose to attend a dancing party under the guise of an oyster supper. How many delusive snares are laid to entrap and turn aside the youth into divergent paths. We found it necessary to suspend eight of our students for the remainder of the term. It is a painful duty of the surgeon to amputate a limb, yet it may be an imperative duty, in order to save the life of the patient, and restore the body to health.