The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1879-08-28
A BRAVE BOY.
BY @. 8. SLEIGHT.

Speaking of courage" said my
friend, Tom Barton, as we met one day
after long separation, reminds me of
an incident that happened at the doc
tors school the first winter after you
left.
1t was during the Christmas holi-
days, and all of the boys had gone homo
except two brothers, named Fred and
Albert Kobb, and myself. They were
obliged to stay during the vacation be-
cause their parents were spending the
season in Florida, and well, as YOU
know, my home was at a distance, and
we were poor, so remained at school.
The brothers were very unlike, both
in appearance and character. Fred, the
elder of the two, was a large, muscular,
ruddy-faced boy, not much in love with
books. He was OF an overbearing dispo-
sition, and had great deal of conceit.
Albert, on the contrary, was pale
and slender. He was very quiet and
studious, and had such love of honesty
and truth, and such detestation of mean
ness and wrong, that we boys had
dubbed him the 'Parson.'
1t was the Saturday night between
Christmas and New Years. We three
boys were hugging the stove in the lit
tie room adjoining the doctors study.
Doctor was in the study writing SER
mon for the following day, as he had to
preach at Milltown.
"We could hear his pen scratch over
the paper during the lulls in our con-
versation. Occasionally that aheml'
of his would come through the partially
opened door; but somehow his .ahems'
seemed to lose their ominous character
during holidays.
The subiect of our conversation was
robbery that had been perpetrated at
Squire Little's store the previous
night.
Robberies, as you know, were un-
usual occurrences in the little village
of Acme. Of course this one furnished a
topic for abundance of talk.
Wherever we had been that day we
had found some groups of men and boys
talking about robberies in general, and
this one in particular.
4It was but natural that in the evens
ing we boys should discuss the same
subject, and each of MS offered various
speculations as to who the robber was,
where he had gone, and whether he
would be captured or not.
ing burglaries of which we had ever
heard or read, and finally described
such as had happened in our own houses
3In the descriptions of our personal
experiences Fred gave glowing ac-
count of an incident that had occurred
in his fathers family. One night he
said the coachman thought he saw a
man prowling in the chicken yard. He
fired q pistol at him, and had summoned
the other servants to go in pursuit of
the robber. He told us how the brave
men, armed with lanterns, pokers and
blunderbusses, had reached the chicken
yard, and there found traces of blood,
which they followed up for few yards,
and found, lying in the last throes OF
death, the victim of the coachman's
prowess-a fine black Spanish rooster
"At length said I, What would you
do if you should hear burglar some
night trying to enter your house?
Fired Strengthened himself and
squared his shoulders. wouldn't
hesitate q moment to shoot him. said
he, valiantly. I tell you, it would be a
good burglar that could get away from
me-
"Al rested his chin in his hands, and
gazed thoughtfully into the glowing
Goals.
a7Well,' said he, slowly, it is hard
to tell what fellow might do under
such circumstances. I rather believe
though, would take good care to keep
out of his way. What would you do,
Tom?
"Mep' i exclaimed. Very likely
I'd cover my head with the bedclothes
and leave him to carry off house and
all if he could
Erred was about to make another re-
mark, but was prevented by the doctor
who appeared in the doorway. We'll
boys said he, don't you think we've
had enough talk about robberies for one
evening2 1t is getting late now, and
your continual talk has bothered me Sc
that I have only written one page dur
ing the last half hour, and on that pagt
1 have written four times the wore
"burgulary" instead of "brayery,"
Bidding him goodnight We went u
stairs, and were soon fast asleep.
About midnight I awoke with tn
consciousness of having been arouse'
by some unusual noise. Slightly rails
ing my head I listened, and heard
scraping sound at the back hall window