Seventeen months after our marriage, our oldest child, Henry, was born.  Meanwhile we had gone to Sidney, Delaware County, where my father opened a shop.  I still continued in business with him, and during our stay at Sidney, my daughter, Elizabeth, was born.  From Sidney, my father wanted to go to Bainbridge, Chenango, County, N.Y., and I went with him, leaving my wife and the children at Sidney, while we prospected.  As usual my father started a blacksmith-shop; but I bought a hundred acres of timber land, went to lumbering, and made money.  We had a house about four miles from the village, I living with my father, and as soon as found out that we were doing well in business, I sent to Sidney for my wife and children.  They were to come by stage, and were due, after passing through Bainbridge, at our house at four o’clock in the morning.  We were up early to meet the stage; but when it arrived, the driver told us that my wife had stopped at the public house in Bainbridge.

Wondering what this could mean, I at once set out with my brother and walked over to the village.  It was daylight when we arrived, and knocked loudly at the public house door.  After considerable delay, the clerk came to the door and let us in.  He also asked as to “take something,” which we did.  The clerk knew us well, and I inquired if my wife was in the house; he said she was, told us what room she was in, and we went up stairs and found her in bed with her children.  Waking her, I asked her why she did not come home, in the stage?  She replied that the clerk down stairs told her that the stage did not go beyond the house, and that she expected to walk over, as soon as it was daylight, or that possibly we might come for her.

I declare, I was so young and unsophisticated that I suspected nothing, and blamed only the stupidity, as I supposed, of the clerk in telling her that the stage did not go beyond Bainbridge.  My wife got up and dressed herself and the children, and then as it was broad daylight, after endeavoring, ineffectually, to get a conveyance, we started for home on foot, she leading the little boy, and I carrying the youngest child.  We were not far on our way when she suddenly stopped, stooped down, and exclaimed: 

“O! see what I have found in the road.”

And she showed me a ten dollar bill.  I was quite surprised, and verdantly enough, advised looking around for more money, which my wife, brother and I industriously did for some minutes.  It was full four weeks before I found out where that ten dollar bill came from.  Meanwhile, my wife was received and was living in her new home, being treated with great kindness by all of us.  It was evident, however, that she had something on her mind which troubled her, and one morning, about a month after her arrival, I found her in tears.  I asked her what was the matter?  She said that she had been deceiving me; that she did not pick up the ten dollar bill in the road; but that it was given to her by the clerk in the public house in Bainbridge; only, however, for this:  he had grossly insulted her; she had resented it, and he had given her the money, partly as a reparation, and partly to prevent her from speaking of the insult to me or to others.