This place I meant to make my base of operations for the new
campaign I had been planning all winter. I "put up" at a public
house kept by a man who was known in the region round about as the
"Boston Yankee," for he migrated from Boston to New Jersey and was
doing a thriving business at hotel keeping in Oxford. What a
thorough good-fellow he was will presently appear. I had been in the
hotel four days and had become pretty intimate with the landlord
before I ventured to make inquiries about what I was most anxious to
learn; but finally I asked him if he knew the Scheimers over the
river? He looked at me in a very comical way, and then broke out:
"Well, I declare, I thought I knew you, you're the chap that tried
to run away with old Scheimer's daughter Sarah, last August; and
you're down here to get her this time, if you can."
I owned up to my identity, but warned Boston Yankee that if he told
any one who I was, or that I was about there, I'd blow his brains
out.
"You keep cool," said he, "don't you be uneasy; I'm your friend and
the gal's friend, and I'll help you both all I can; and if you want
to carry off Sarah Scheimer and marry her, I'll tell you how to work
it. You see she has been watched as closely as possible all winter,
ever since she got well, for she was crazy-like, awhile. Well, you
could'nt get nearer to her, first off, than you could to the North
Pole; but do you remember Mary Smith who was servant gal, there when
you boarded with Scheimer?" I remembered the girl well and told him
so, and he continued: "Well, I saw her the other day, and she told
me she was living in Easton, and where she could be found; now, I'll
give you full directions and do you take my horse and buggy to-morrow
morning early and go down and see her, and get her to go over and
let Sarah know that you're round; meantime I'll keep dark; I know
my business and you know yours.
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