A SURPRISED DEACON
Deacon Blackford had certainly heard a noise. It was not the slight
sound made by Joe Strong, when that young magician made his escape from
the house, but it was the louder noise made by the two rascals in taking
the papers and money.
“What’s that, Amos?” asked Mrs. Abigail Blackford, as she too heard the
suspicious sound.
“I don’t know,” he answered sleepily enough. He had lain awake the early
part of the night, tossing restlessly, for the memory of the scene in
the afternoon with the two men had bothered the deacon.
“But, Amos,” persisted his wife, “it _is_ a noise.”
“Yes,” he admitted, after listening a moment, “it surely is.”
“Hadn’t you better get up and see what it is?” she suggested.
He waited a moment before replying, meanwhile listening intently. The
sound was plainer now.
“Couldn’t be cats, could it?” the deacon asked, and his voice was
hopeful. He did not like to get up, for he was tired and sleepy.
“Cats! No, the idea!” his wife exclaimed. “It’s somebody downstairs
inside the house, Amos, and you’ve got to get up and see who it is.”
“Queer time for anybody to be calling,” grumbled Joe’s foster-father.
“Calling! It isn’t anybody calling!” exclaimed Mrs. Blackford in a
shrill whisper. “It’s burglars if it’s anybody. Get up, Amos, and drive
’em out. Call Joe to help you. He’s good and strong. He can handle
almost as much as you can.”
But without waiting to call Joe, Mr. Blackford gave a jump out of bed
and hurried down the stairs in the darkness. As he went down he became
aware of a light in the back parlor—the room where stood his desk, which
was like a safe to him, and the old clock where his wife insisted on
keeping her small roll of bills, on the theory that burglars would never
think of money being in a clock.
“It is some one,” muttered the deacon. “I’m glad I got up.”
He hurried on, taking no pains to muffle the “clap-clap” of the heels of
his slippers, into which he had hurriedly thrust his feet. “Clap-clap”
they went, down the stairs.
Just as he reached the door of the back parlor the deacon saw a form
disappearing through the window. Who it was he could not see, as just
then the heel of the person making an egress in this queer fashion hit
and knocked over the lamp, which exploded with a slight noise, the
burning oil setting fire to the carpet and the lace curtains.
For the moment the fear of fire was uppermost in the mind of the deacon.
He saw the stream of blazing oil spreading, and he knew that in a few
moments more the whole room would be ablaze.
But the deacon was quick, and, fortunately did not lose his presence of
mind. He caught up a heavy rug, and, not going near enough the blaze to
let his own thin night garments catch, he tossed the rug over the blaze,
smothering it.
Then with a quick motion he tore down the burning lace curtains, and
tossed them out of the open window, where they could harmlessly consume
themselves on the grass. The deacon burned his hands slightly in pulling
down the curtains, but he did not notice that in the excitement of the
moment.
The fire was out almost as soon as it had started, for he had tossed the
rug over burning lamp and all, and now only some dense black smoke
remained to tell what had happened.
“Whew!” panted the deacon, “that was a close call! It’s a good thing I
got up when I did, or the whole house would have gone! A narrow shave!”
He got a pail of water to toss on the smouldering carpet. After he had
lifted the smothering rug, and as he doused out the few remaining sparks
his wife called to him.
“Anybody down there, Amos?”
“No, nobody now,” grimly answered the old man.
“Well, it smells like some one was smoking down there. I smell smoke,
Amos. There _must_ be somebody there!”
“No! They’ve gone,” he answered. “It was the lamp you smelled smoking.
It blew up!”
“Blew up! Deacon Blackford what ails you? What’s happened, anyhow?”
“I don’t rightly know yet, myself. Seems quite considerable must have
happened, and it might have been worse. You can come down if you want
to. There’s nobody here now but me, and the fire’s out.”
“The fire’s out!” cried his wife from the head of the stairs. “What
fire? Who started the fire?”
“Come down and you’ll see it all,” he answered, looking about to make
sure there were no stray sparks anywhere.
Mrs. Blackford lost no time in descending, and her surprise was as great
as was the deacon’s. But it was the loss of her curtains, the burned
hole in the carpet, the broken lamp and the charred rug that surprised
Joe’s foster-mother. She had not seen the intruder go out of the window,
as had her husband.
“What in the world—how did it—who——?” she began, hardly knowing what
question to ask first. But the deacon cut in with:
“I don’t know any more about it than you do. I came down in time to see
somebody go through the window and kick over the lamp. Then the fire
started and I had to hustle to put it out.”
“Some one went through the window! Who in the world could it have been?
Did you speak to him?”
“Burglars don’t generally leave a card, nor stop to talk,” answered the
old man grimly. “But I guess——”
The deacon did not finish, but crossed the room to his desk. He noticed
that the flap was down, and he knew he had closed and locked it the
night before. Hurriedly he ran through his papers, and then straightened
up with a queer look on his face.
“They’re gone!” he gasped. “Gone!”
“What?” asked his wife. “What’s gone?”
“My investment papers—the securities—the only thing I had to show what
money was due me. They’re gone and whoever has ’em can make use of ’em!
I’ve been robbed!”
Turning again to the desk he opened a small drawer.
“He took the money too!” he muttered. “Every cent of it, and there was
nigh on to a hundred dollars there!”
He fairly moaned out the words, and putting his hand to his head sank
weakly into a chair. Mrs. Blackford regarded her husband pityingly and
darted toward him, fearing he was going to faint, though he had never
done it in his life. Then a sudden idea came to her.
She rushed over to the clock, opened it and fell back, raising her hands
in the air in astonishment.
“Mine’s gone too!” she cried! “The thirty-nine dollars I had in the
clock! The burglar took that too! Oh, this is terrible! You must call
the constables, Amos! We’ve been robbed! They took my money! Call Joe,
and send him after Hen Sylvester. I’ll call him,” for the deacon seemed
incapable of action just then.
Mrs. Blackford hurried upstairs, and called:
“Joe! Joe! Get up! There’ve been burglars in the house! They’ve robbed
your pa and me, and set fire to the place! Get up and go for the
constables!”
“Is he coming?” asked the deacon, whose heart was not beating quite so
fast now.
“I can’t seem to make him hear,” said Mrs. Blackford.
“I’ll rout him out,” said the old man. “I guess he’d better go after the
constable. He can go quicker than I can.”
But Joe did not answer to this summons either, and when the door of his
room was opened, showing his undisturbed bed, and when a quick search
revealed that he had taken most of his belongings the deacon jumped to
the most natural conclusion.
“He’s gone, Abigail!” he cried. “Joe’s run away, and it was him that
robbed us and set fire to the place!”
“Oh, no, Deacon! _He_ wouldn’t do such a thing!”
“Woman, I tell you he did!” cried the deacon in his most thundering
tones. “He’s robbed us and run away! I’ll get the law after him! The
thief!” and with a face flushed with wrath the deacon proceeded to
dress, muttering the while:
“He robbed us! Joe robbed us and ran away! I always knew that the circus
and magician blood in him would tell! Now it’s come out with a
vengeance!”