At last the happy day of my deliverance came. The penalty for
pretending to marry one milliner and for being married by another
milliner was paid. My sentence was fulfilled. I had looked forward
to this day for months. Of all my jail and prison life in different
States, this in Vermont was the hardest, the most severe. My
obstinacy, no doubt, did much at first to enhance my sufferings, and
it was the accident only of my saving Morey's life that made the
last part of my imprisonment a little more tolerable. When I was
preparing to go, it was discovered that the fine suit of clothes I
wore into the prison had been given by mistake or design to some one
else, and my silk hat and calf-skin boots had gone with the clothes.
But never mind! I would have gone out into the world in rags-my
liberty was all I wanted then. The Warden gave me one of his own old
coats, a ragged pair of pantaloons, and a new pair of brogan shoes.
He also gave me three dollars, which was precisely a dollar a year
for my services, and this was more than I ever meant to earn there.
Thus equipped and supplied I was sent out into the streets of
Windsor.
I had not gone half a mile before I met a poor old woman whom I had
known very well in Rutland. She recognized me at once, though I know
I was sadly changed for the worse. She was on her way to Fall River,
where she had relatives, and where she hoped for help, but had no
money to pay her fare, so I divided my small stock with her, and
that left me just one dollar and a half with which to begin the
world again.
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