People's Pilot, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1897 — AWAY TWENTY-SIX YEARS. [ARTICLE]

AWAY TWENTY-SIX YEARS.

Left Wife and Daughter and Went West to Seek a Fortune. This might have been an Enoch Arden tale, but it isn’t. Indeed, it would have been if the Mary of this incident had married a second time. But Mary didn’t, says the New York World. Thirty years ago they came to Vinoland, N. J.. and set up their household goods in the midst of the pine forests. There were Captain Mosee B. Lucas, an old-time ship captain, retired, his good wife, Mary B. Lucas, M. D., graduate of the Boston schools, and their daughter Lucy. They bought a farm tract, built a little house and set to work to clear away the woodland. Two years of this satisfied the old sea captain, in whose veins flawed the roving blood of a seafaring man. One day he faced the good wife, satchel in hand. “I’m goin’ out west, Mary,” said he, “to seek my fortune. It’s toe dead rusty here to suit me.” They sent him away with tears and blessings. After he had gone Dr. Lucas braced herself for a bout with fate. She decided to clear the land herself, and as her skirts discommoded her she put on bloomers, the first in all likelihood in south Jersey, and her daughter, when she reached womanhood, followed suit. Ignorant people guyed the two lone women. Boys threw stones at them. But the Lucases kept on, and in the course of years they carved a lino little farm out of their woodland tract. Once in a great while there was an opportunity for Mrs. Lucas to practice her profession, and when the village of Pleasanton arose on the site of what was a single store she secured quite a neat little practice. Years passed. No word from the captain. The woman mourned him as dead. Recently there stepped from a train at Vineland a gray-haired, well-to-do looking man of 76.

“Know a party by the name of Lucas —Mary B.?” he asked of a hackman. “To be sure,” said the latter. "Git right ni.” And the nag was soon hobbling over the roads toward Pleasantville. Enoch Arden —for it was he — stuck his head out of the window and gaped. What had been rough pine woods was now well-cleared farms. At (his own door the vehicle draw up. Two elderly women in bloomers, partly covered by their short gingham aprons, come out. “Must be a mistake. Drive on,” said Captain Lucas. “No, this is the place,” said the driver. The old man looked again. “What! Mar, is that you?” he asked. “For the love of heaven, It’s Moses!” sih ecried. “Welcome home, my dear. But weren’t you a long time coming?” Hand and hand they went into the house. No chance for an Enoch Arden situation. Lucas told them that he was a lumberman of Eureka, Cal., and had plenty of money to make them comfortable the rest of their lives.