He was to speak in Decatur that night, and I was obliged to secure a special train, as the regular train was four hours late. I secured a caboose and engine on the Illinois Central Railroad. We reached a small station about half-way to Decatur. We had to take a side track and wait for an upcoming train to pass. I saw a great crowd at the station, but our side track took us to one side of the town. We had no more than stopped when, looking back, I saw the crowd rushing toward our car. It was during the period when Mr. Beecher was most liable to insult, and I instinctively felt that that crowd were not coming to do him honor. We had a large coal stove in the caboose. It was red hot. A heavy iron poker lay on the floor. I ran the poker into the stove and let it heat. The mob came on and insisted on getting into the car. As I was watching the front door Mr. Beecher called, “Pond!” I looked around and saw that they had forced open the back door. I at once asked them to leave, as it was a private car and a special train. They kept crowding in, and I saw trouble ahead if they persisted. I caught the poker (which had become red hot) out of the stove and went for them. I jabbed it straight into them, and they began to get out. I know that one of those roughs, if he is living, bears a scar, as I sawed the poker square across his arm and heard the meat fry. We reached Decatur in time for the lecture, and went to Springfield the next day. Once in 1884 Mr. Beecher requested me to postpone a lecture engagement on account of an important wedding which he said he had on hand. He declined to tell me who was to be married. In fact, he said, he knew little about it himself. He invited me to his house that evening, and I was sitting with Mrs. Beecher in the library when the door bell rang and the parties were escorted to the parlor. He called Mrs. Beecher to join the party, but I was not invited. They must have remained an hour chatting after the ceremony, and then Mr. Beecher, in his cheerful, delightful manner, escorted them to the door, and they drove off. Mr. and Mrs. Beecher then returned to the library, expressing great wonder, and, I think, satisfaction, at the event. Then he told me that he had just married C. P. Huntington to Mrs. A. D. Warsham, who was quite a prominent woman in New York and the subject of considerable comment as being very ambitious. He believed she would make Mr. Huntington an excellent wife. She was just the woman for him. Several weeks after this incident Mr. Beecher and I were together on the cars and he was having what he called a “general house-cleaning” of his pockets--not an uncommon occurrence. His pockets would often get loaded up with letters and papers, and if he happened to be sitting by an open car window, he would clear out his pockets, tear up old letters and throw them away.