Page:Journey to Pennsylvania.djvu/49

 prove to me by writing from Amsterdam, that my wife and child, together with my sister-in-law and many countrymen, had embarked for Philadelphia with the last transport last summer. They told me very accurately the names of my wife and child, how old and tall they were, and that my wife had said her husband had been an organist in Pennsylvania for four years; they also showed me my wife's name in a letter, and told me with what ship and captain had sailed from Amsterdam, and that my wife was lodged with four other women in berth No. 22, which circumstantial communication had the effect of making one exceedingly confused and irresolute. But I read to them letters from my wife in which she plainly said that she would never in all her life go there without me, on the contrary that she eagerly awaited my return. I said that I had written to her again that I had made up my mind to return, God willing, to Germany next year, wherefore I could not possibly believe all this. The merchants then produced witnesses, which made me so perplexed that I did not know what to believe or to do. At length, however, after mature deliberation, and no doubt by divine direction, I came to the conclusion that, inasmuch as I had already the greater part of my arduous journey, viz. 1400 hours way, behind me, and had arrived at the