The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1890-03-18
A STORY OF
How the Vanity of a Wife Saved Her
Own Life and Her Husbands.

Own Lie ana lief duSDanQS
I believe Allan Pinkerton to have been
the greatest detective who ever lived.
Aside from this distinction he was one of
the most interesting of men, and 10 writer
ever had a better chance to judge than l.
For some years I was daily in his COM
pany, indeed in his confidential employ,
and in such capacity that there were re-
peated occasions for good fellowship, and
as many for condolences and "reminiscences.
Among the countless incidents of his life
which thus came to me, one that i'm
thrilling of his exploits was one in which
the p~ardonable vanity of one good little
woman saved her own husbands life.
Pinkerton never told anybody anything
"by request" 1t always came or i'm
pulse. We had been in New York and
Philadelphia together, visiting Generals
Marcy and Mcclellan, Tom Scott, and
others, and were returning west over the
Pennsylvania Railroad. He never dined
at railroad stations, but was always pro-
vided with a welLstocked hamper. We
had eaten, and he had just settled back
comfortably in his seat with a few hearty
clappings of his hands together Gan old
habit, ~bespeaking content with him),
when he saw a bottle, carelessly flung
from a forward coach, barely Craze a
track-mender's head. A look of indig-
nant anxiety flashed into his face, soon
giving place to a smile, and finally followed
by roars Of laughter from the rugged old
man whom it took paralysis many long
years to kill.
II never see a bit of luck like that
without 'minding me of the biggest piece
of luck I ever saw" began the veteran
criminal catcher, 'and it happened to a raw
Scotchman and his wife l knew. The
Scotch fool had been a chartist; a price
was on his head; he had a sweetheart,
Joan Carfrae, a book-folder's apprentice
and a lass that had caught his heart a
singing chartist songs, who married him
with his head all but in the moose, and
some friends shipped them by stealth to
Quebec, he as a ships cooper, and she as
a cook, on the bark Kent, April 8, 1910
On May s the bark was wrecked on Sable
Island, but the crew aud passengers were
saved by the aid of friendly Indians, who
took everything that came ashore. The
cooper and wife finally got away from the
scene of the wreck to Fisherman's village,
in a small boat, and from there by fishing
smack to Aspy bay, where the Unicorn,
of Quebec, changed mails with the Brit
tania, one of the finest steamers across
the Atlantic. They were helped f ON
here to Montreal, where the cooper got
work heading beef barrels, and the couple
soon got to house keeping famously in
one room. But members Of the cooper's
union confidently told him the Job would
shut down at a certain date, and so he i'm
pulsively decided on going to the thriving
little city of Chicago. After buying their
tickets they had no money left. The
steamer was to leave that very afternoon.
The cooper's little bit of a wife came and
confessed that she had criminally ordered
a bonnet at the milliner's; that it could
not be got for the charges, and pitifully
pleaded that they wait for the next boat
about a week later, that the money might
be earned and the precious bonnet secured.
The Scotch cooper roared like a mad bull,
but finally consented. They got the bon
net, but that husband made that wife's
life little short of hell, till"-and here
Pinkerton rOared the startled passengers
out of their dozings-" news came in a
few days that the boat they would have
taken had it not been for that lucky bon
net, blew up and every soul on board
was lost.
81 tell you, that little song-singing wife
has had her way about bonnets ever
since" chuckled Pinkerton. For that
little Edinburgh girl was my Joanl and
that fool cooper who ran away from the
queens officers was me- Worcester Spa.