Really, truly amazing things are happening with this manuscript.

Just four days ago, I had a sense where this story was going, what I needed to find out, what I would never find out, what I knew and what was hidden. And then just yesterday, and purely accidentally, while double-checking something wholly trivial to the work as a whole, I stumbled where I thought I had trod 1,000 times and found something new, something essential, something that changes how about a third of the story of Albert Blanchard is getting written.

Because, in 1869, Daniel S. Blanchard was so annoyed about what the Greenfield Recorder chose to say about his decision to have his son arrested, twice, when Herbert was 16, I now have a more profound insight into what was going on with this feisty delinquent. Where before I was simply guessing and stabbing in the dark at an attempt at a timeline, based on interviews and innuendos years later, now I have just enough testimony to compare against each testimony to present a picture of what may have possessed young Herbert to keep running, when running away from Massachusetts could mean certain death to a boy in a cap and a coat concealing a dirk and pistol.

I know it must have taken a lot for you, Daniel, to put yourself out there and tell about the predicament you had with your son, and I appreciate that. I appreciate your whole letter.

Especially the part where you lied.