His wife pleaded with him, but in vain. To Louisville he went, and there got work at the first shop to which he made application. At the end of a week he sent his wife money, and told her that he had procured temporary employment. She wrote back asking if she might not join him immediately. But to this he objected, on the score that, as his situation was not a permanent one, he might, in a few weeks, be obliged to leave Louisville and go somewhere else. This, to his wife, was by no means satisfactory. But she could do no less than submit.
Thus separated, they lived for the next three months, Fletcher visiting his wife and child once every two weeks, and spending Sunday with them. During the time, he made good wages. But both himself and wife were very unhappy. Earnestly did the latter plead with her husband to be allowed to remove to Louisville. To this however, he steadily objected. Daily he lived in the hope of securing a clerkship in some store, and thus, being able to rise above the low condition in which he was placed. The moment he reached that consummation, so much desired, he would instantly remove his family.
At length, it happened that Fletcher did not write once, instead of several times, during one of the periods of two weeks that he was regularly absent. The Sunday morning when he was expected home arrived, but it did not bring, as usual, his anxiously looked-for presence. His wife was almost beside herself with alarm. No letter coming on Monday, she took her child and started for Louisville in the first boat. She arrived at daylight, on Tuesday morning, in a strange city, herself a total stranger to all therein, except her husband, and perfectly ignorant as to where he was to be found. The captain of the steamboat kindly attended her to a boarding-house, and there she was left, without a single clue in her mind as to the means of finding her husband. Inquiries were made of all in the boarding-house, but no one had heard even the name of Joseph Fletcher. As soon as she could make arrangements to get out, Mrs. Fletcher visited all the dry-goods stores in the city, for in some one of these she supposed her husband to be employed, although he had never stated particularly the kind of business in which he was engaged. This search, after being continued for a greater part of the day, turned out fruitless. Night found the unhappy wife in an agony of suspense and alarm. Some one at the boarding-house advised her to have an advertisement for her husband inserted in a morning paper. She did not hesitate long about this course. In the morning, a brief advertisement appeared; and about nine o'clock a man called and asked to see her.
She descended from her room to the parlour with a wildly throbbing heart, but staggered forward and sank into a chair, weak almost as an infant, when she saw that the man was a stranger, instead of her husband, whom she had expected to meet.
"Are you Mrs. Fletcher?" he asked.
"I am," she faintly replied.
"You advertised for information in regard to your husband?"
"I did. Where is he? Oh, sir, has any thing happened to him?"
"No, ma'am, nothing serious. He has only been sick for a week or ten days; that is, the man I refer to has. Your husband is a tailor?"
"Is the man you speak of a tailor?" eagerly asked Mrs. Fletcher.