Porter: Well - I really wasn't free, though - mobsters were still after me. I was only freed from the jail. To avoid those raucous mobsters I had to duck-about and hide-out on the back roads and trails, all the way back up to Nauvoo. My feet were cold and bloody. I tried to keep them wrapped up, but they got to be an awful mess. Was better'n being held up in that prison, though.
When I got to Nauvoo, I went right to the Mansion House, which was the home of Joseph and Emma. After being in prison and on the road for nine months I looked a terrible sight! Some of the ladies there were a screamin' at the sight of me (chuckle,chuckle). Joseph came 'round the corner, ready to cast me out, but then he stopped and looked at me right in the eye and recognized me - and gave me a big bear hug!
I stayed with Joseph and Emma in the Mansion House for a piece. In fact, I opened up a bar to raise money for the saints, there in the Mansion House, while Emma was down in Saint Louis looking for furniture. I was makin' quite a lot of money, but that didn't last long. As soon as she got back, she let Joseph know she wasn't happy about it. She said that the kind of people it would attract wasn't the kind they would want around the children, so he had me close it up right then. It was okay, though - it still beat being in that damp, lonely prison.