Seven Wives and Seven Prisons

AT HOME-ANOTHER MARRIAGE-STARTING FOR OHIO-CHANGE OF PLANS-DOMESTIC QUARRELS-UNPLEASANT STORIES ABOUT MARY-BOUND OVER TO KEEP THE PEACE-ANOTHER ARREST

ts a better man. I honestly meant to make every effort to be so, and on my stay to New York I made numberless vows for my own future good behavior. I bound myself over, as it were, to keep the pace-my own peace and quiet especially-and became my own surety. That I could not have had

safe, and I had a good suit of clothes on my back-the clothes I took off when I went to prison in Trenton-and which were returned to me when I came away. I went to a friend who loaned me some money, a

en at Newbury and Montgomery; and how I had traveled about the country with them, and with the most beneficial results to my patients. She was much interested, inquired into the particulars, and finally thought the plan would be a favorable one for her husband. She asked me to go with her to see him, and said that if he was in

oining villages, and in a few weeks I had a very good practice. I might have lived here quietly and made money. Nobody knew anything of my former history, my marriages or my

e where I lived, I saw a fine girl from New Hampshire, with whom I became acquainted-so easily, so far as she was concerned-that I ought to have been

e, if I was in that vicinity, she hoped I would come and see her. We parted very lovingly, and when she had been in Bennington a few days she wrote to me, setting a time for me to visit her; but in business in Brattleboro was too goo

d he gave her a room and I paid her bills. The cousin business was a full cover to our intimacy; she sat next to me at the table, rode about with me to see my p

thought they would like to know me a little better, but she said we were old friends, she knew me thoroughly, and meant to marry me. There was no f

my bills, and so on. Strange as it may seem, her parents made no objection to her going, though I was to be absent a fortnight, and was not to be married till I came back. So we went tog

ome two weeks, and meanwhile arranged our plans for the future. We proposed to go out to Ohio, where she had some relatives, and settle down. She had seven hundred dollars in bank in Keene which she drew, and we started on our jour

been altogether what it should have been. I had been too blinded by her beauty when I first saw her in Brattleboro, to notice how extremely easily she was won. Her parents, too, were wonderfully willing, if not eager, to marry her to me. All these things came to me now, and we had some very lively conversations on the subject, in which the old folks join

rrels and the cause of the same, were all too tempting material not to be served up in

ventures and marriages. Of this however I knew nothing, till one day, while I was at the hotel, I was suddenly arrested for bigamy. But I was used

office was tired out with it, I especially, and so I took a favorable opportunity to leave the premises. I bolted for the door, ran down stairs

riedly narrating the situation, I offered him one hundred dollars if he would secrete me till the hue and cry was over and I could safely get away. I think he would have done it from goo

y after my flight the whole neighborhood was searched, that is, the woods, roads, and adjacent villages. They never thought of looking in

dark closet to retire to whenever any one came in; and gossiping neighbors coming in almost every hour, kept me in tha

so that his expedition might excite no suspicion. Twenty miles away from Keene he set me down in the road, and, bidding him "good-bye," I began my march toward Concord. When I arrived there, almost th

e saw me he put an officer on my trail. I thought it was safe here to take the cars, for I was footsore and wea

re that I was a fugitive from justice, and he stated the circumstances of my escape. So

Keene, he allowed me to go to the hotel and pack my trunk to be forwarded to Meredith Bridge by express. He then handed me over to the authorities, and

nduce the other officer to go with me to the hotel under pretense of looking after my things, and getting what would be necessary for my comfort in jail. My Concord friend kept the other officer down stairs-in the bar-r

rything favored my escape. I had no idea of spending months in jail at Keene, and months more, perhaps years,

n any town or village where the telegraph might have conveyed a description of my person. I traveled night and day on foot, and more at

day, as I dared to get them, and sleeping in barns or under haystacks for nothing, my purse did not materially diminis

taid two days, sending in the meantime for my trunk from Meredith Bridge, and getting it by express. Of course it went t

ave Portland as soon as possible. Half an hour after this good advice I was on my way by cars to Canada. In Canada I stayed in different small towns near the border, an