This intelligence changed, or rather made definite my plan.  Sarah was nothing to me now.  The boy was everything.  I must see him, and if he was what he was represented to be, a bright little fellow, I determined that he should no longer remain in the hands and under the control of his drunken step-father, but I would carry him away with me if I could.  It was nearly noon when we arrived at Oxford, and going to my old quarters, I found that “Boston Yankee,” had long since left the place.  There was a new landlord, and I saw no familiar faces about the house; all was new and strange to me.  I made inquiries, and soon found out that Sarah’s boy went to a school in town not far from the hotel, and I went there to “prospect,” leaving Henry at the public house.

It was noon now, and fifty or more boys were trooping out of school.  I carefully scanned the throng.  The old proverb has it that it is a wise child who knows its own father; but it is not so difficult for a father to know his own children.  The moment I put my eyes on Sarah’s son, I knew him; he was the very image of me; I could have picked him out of a thousand.  I beckoned to the boy and he came to me.  He was barefoot; and his very toes betrayed him, for they “overrode” just as mine did; but his face was enough and would have been evidence of his identity as my son in any court in Christendom.

“Do you know me, my little man?” said I.

“No, sir, I do not.”

“Do you know what was your mother’s name before she was married?”

“Yes Sir, it was Sarah Scheimer.”

“Do you know that the man with whom you live is not your rather?”

“Oh, yes, Sir, I know that; mother always told me so; but she never told me who my father was.”

“My son,” said I taking him in my arms, “I am your father; wait about here a few minutes till I can go and get my horse and carriage, and I will take you to ride.”

I ran over to the hotel; ordered my horse to be brought to the door at once, got into the wagon with Henry and told him that Sarah Scheimer’s boy was just across the way, and that I was going to carry him off with us.  Henry implored me not to do it, and said it was dangerous.  I never stopped to think of danger when my will impelled me.  I did not know that at that moment, men who had noticed my excited manner, and who knew I was “up to something,” were watching me from the hotel piazza.  I drove over where the boy was waiting, called him to me, and Henry held the reins while I put out my hands to pull the boy into the carriage.  Two of the men who were watching me came at once, one of them taking the horse by the head, and the other coming to me and demanding: 

“What are you going to do with that boy?”

“Take him with me; he is my son.”

“No you don’t,” said the man, and he laid hold of the boy and attempted to pull him out of the wagon.  I also seized the lad who began to scream.  In the struggle for possession, I caught up the whip and struck the man with the handle, felling him to the ground.  All the while the other man was shouting for assistance.  The crowd gathered.  The boy was roughly torn from me, in spite of my efforts to retain him.  Henry was thoroughly alarmed; and while the mob were trying to pull us also out of the carriage he whipped the horse till he sprang through the crowd and was well off in a moment.