On my return I found the peaceful home I left in the
morning a perfect pandemonium. Sarah was fairly frantic. The whole
family were abusing her. The returned brother especially, was
calling her all the vile names he could lay his tongue to. I learned
afterwards that he had been doing it ever since he came into the
house that day and found her at home and heard that I was with her.
They had picked, wrenched rather, out of her the secret I had
confided to her that I had another wife from whom I was "separated,"
but not divorced. My sudden presence on this scene was not exactly
oil on troubled waters; it was gunpowder to fire. As soon as Sarah
saw me at the door she cried out:
"O! husband, let us go away from here."
Her mother turned and shouted at me that I had better fly at once or
they would kill me. Meanwhile, that mob, which the Scheimer boys
seemed always to have at hand, was gathering in the dooryard. I
managed to get near enough to Sarah to tell her that I would send a
man for her next day, and then if she was willing to come with me
she must get away from her family if possible. I then made a rush
through the crowd, and reached the road. I think the gang had an
indistinct knowledge of the situation, or they would have mobbed me,
and perhaps killed me. They knew something was "to pay" at
Scheimer's, but did not know exactly what. Once on the road it was
my intention to have gone over to Belvidere, and then on to Oxford,
where I should have found a sure refuge with my friend Boston
Yankee.
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