The burglar hesitated. Back of him was a sheer drop of
twenty-five feet to the ground. In front of him was a determined
woman, grasping in her hand a huge revolver. She covered him
steadily.
“I won’t shoot,” she said, “if you will remain still.”
She advanced upon him and poking the muzzle of the gun in his
face reached into his pocket and pulled out his revolver.
“Come in.”
The burglar obediently stept inside the room. All his courage
was gone.
“Sit down,” said the woman.
He sat down.
She got a huge ball of heavy cord from her bureau and spent the
next twenty minutes in tying him up. Then she pointed out of the
window.
“Is that your wagon out there behind the barn?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thought you would carry away my silver in it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman called her husband, who was hiding behind the baby’s
crib in the next room.
“Here, John,” she said, “take some of this furniture out.”
John came in and got to work. The burglar watched with curious
eyes. Suddenly his face blanched. He looked out of the window
and saw in the light of the moon what John was carrying.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked.
The woman began cutting his cords.
“I’m going to load you up with all of the old eyesores that
we have had in the house for these many years,” she said,
merrily--“all the furniture presented to us at Christmas
by kind-hearted relatives, all the prizes we have taken at
card-parties, all of the things we have bought at sales, all the
family portraits--everything that we have been simply dying to
get rid of.”--_Life._
(3341)