My boy expressed a fear to go up on to the attic one day recently, and
when I asked him what he found to fear up in a dusty old garret, he said
there was so much old stuff up there that belonged to people who were
dead, and if these old things had memories they must surely be thinking
of the old days and the old friends, and had no welcome for the boys of
the present generation.
Well, wife and I know the old garret has many memories, or at least
articles that suggest old memories, and we seldom make a trip to the old
store house of family heirlooms without coming away with a queer feeling
of loneliness tugging at our hearts. No doubt the boy has often detected
the subdued and solemn expression on our sobered faces; and learned his
lesson of awe and veneration from reading the lines and shadows he has so
often seen there.
The last time we were up on the garret, the three of us, we set about
digging up old memories, because a lady’s side saddle hanging to a rafter
started us to digging up some old family lore. The saddle belonged to
wife’s great-grandmother, and is almost a century old. It was on this
saddle her great-grandmother made the ride of nine miles through the dark
to warn her father that burglars were trying to break into their house.
It seems her father sold some cattle and hogs a few days previously and
had the money locked up in the bureau of his room. It was for this reason
that the daughter and the hired girl were told to take the twins, and
the four of them sleep in this particular room every night, while the
parents attended camp meeting. Some great revivalist on the style of
Peter Cartright was stirring up the people and everybody for miles around
flocked to the camp meeting and pitched their tents and were prepared to
spend several days on the camp ground.
There were several bad characters in the neighborhood and they knew the
old squire had money in the house because he hadn’t been to town since
selling the cattle and would hardly carry it with him to camp meeting.
On the second night after the squire and his wife had left home three
men broke through a kitchen window and began a search of the first floor
rooms, knowing the hired man and the boys slept up stairs.
When they discovered that some one inside the squire’s room was holding
the bolt in place they threatened to kill everybody inside the room if
they didn’t let them in. The twins (girls of six) screamed aloud on
hearing this threat, and their older sister called to the hired man up
stairs to come to their assistance. But no answer came from the upper
precincts. The hired man and the boys were too much scared to even make
any reply.
Then it was that the sister unbolted the window and crawled through and
dropped to the ground, ran quietly to the stable and saddled her horse,
with this very saddle, and rushed off to the distant camp ground through
a darkness that would frighten women of less nerve. Almost breathless she
reached the camp meeting just when the shouting hilarity was the highest,
and was told that her father was at the altar seeking salvation.
Without stopping to ask permission of anybody she walked swiftly up the
aisle to where her father was kneeling, recognizing him by the green coat
he wore, stooped and whispered in his ear: “Come home, father, at once;
there are burglars trying to break into the house!”
“Hell!” he exclaimed loud enough to be heard by the mourner on either
side of him, and said no more until he had saddled his own horse just
back of the camp ground, and the two galloped back home in time to
prevent the robbery. The burglars had taken their own good time to cut
a hole through the door, through which they could reach a hand and pull
back the wooden bolt; but the brave hired girl had stabbed the hand with
a pair of scissors every time it was thrust through, and thus protected
the house until the arrival of the squire and his fearless daughter.
The burglar on watch outside the house heard the approaching horses, and
warning his two pals inside, they all escaped. Next day the burglar with
the scissors wounds on his hands was arrested, and finally confessed and
gave the names of his pals, and the trio served two years in prison.
No, the family history doesn’t enlighten us as to whether the old squire
went back to camp meeting to resume his prayers for salvation, or not.
Quite likely the saving of his cattle and hog money satisfied him for
that particular season. Men weren’t as greedy in those days as they are
now, and he may have left the great supply of saving grace for others to
enjoy.