Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1879-05-21

and get those out that l had already
driven IN, so AS TO use them on the back
windows; they wouldn't come out. Very
we'll, l said To myself. | shan't 60 to bed
tonight, and | prepared myself for sit
ting no. If Reuben didn't come back
for two or three days, l could sleep in
the daytime, and sit up ready to meet
the foe in the nights. To be sure, |
should be all worn out, but what would
he care? | had a grim idea of satisfac-
ton in thinking il was his fault | was
undergoing so much, anyway. He
might at least have left me a pistol, |
said, but what good would it have done
if he had? | was as much afraid Of a
pistol as of a house-breaker. And it
wasn't only the customary house-break-
er in question now; the town was full of
contrabands that had come in to work
on the Improvements, and failing to
find work were starving; and images Of
some Stalwart, brutal black wretch rose
before me every time | put my fingers
on my eyes. In the day, the colored
people had no stancher friend than l,
nut somehow they always figured in my
nightmares.
1t was not q very inviting prospect,
this of sitting up all night, already tired
out as | was. Still, | had n novel, |
could read away part of the time, and
as Don as the servants began to stir at
five o'clock in the morning, | could go
to bed and get three or four hours sleep
anyway. 1t was idle; after | had made
myself comfortable, and opened
my book. the words ran togeth-
er, and it was impossible to at
tach any sense to them, and what
the book was all about l haven't the
least idea. There was a will, and a love
affair, and a murder, and n changing
of children in the cradle, but | couldn't
imagine how people could write and
expect one to be interested in these
|trifiing things when such trouble as
mine was in the world. | heard the
clock strike the slow quarters, and then
strike twelve. | put the book away,
and got nay sewing. But that was no
better, for after a few stitches it oc-
Cured 10 me hat my light, streaming
through the open folding-doors aud QUO
Of those shutterless back windows with
only the lace curtains for q screen, was
a direct invitation TO those strolling beg
sars of the back alley, and | tossed
down my work, and turned down the
gas, and thought / would go and sit by
the glimmer Of the Latrobe IN the back
room. How still the night wasl | lis
tened, and listened, and listened, till
my ears we're strained. Now and then
some street singers wandering along
their way. far of, and seemed TO he the
only people in the universe; now and
then the slow and heavy foot of q po-
liceman sounded III some square. |
thought; now and then some ~straggler
all that was comfort, and not at all sus-
picious. AT last, however, | heard 1t
what | had been listening tor, of
course; a humping and humping to
which my heart beat an echo; and then
a hurrying and s~currying and scratch
ing that told me the rats were stealing
the patatoes in the cellar. / breathed
more freely it was actually something
agreeable to feel ever the rats alive in
the neighborhood, as long as they did
not iorsake the cellar for any other
place. Cats then; the rattle of window
sashes; SCOT falling down the chimney;
the starting Of ONE timber OF some
spike-all the noises without source
that one hears at night, as if they were
part of the stirring of the springs in the
earth, came along after that in slow
succession, and the clock struck one.
| was wretchedly sleepy now. Even
sitting bolt-upright in my chair and
palpitating with fear, it was all | could
do to keep awake, when suddenly |
started as if there had never been such
a thing as sleep in the world. There it
was-a stealthy, mutiled movement at
the cellar grating at the front of the
old house, a lifting of the iron, Il rafting
of the glass, a leap, a fall, a smothered
curse-there was somebody in the eel
lar! My heart stood still; my voice
was utterly gone; if my life had de-
pended On it, | could not have spoken.
Death and destruction in the shape of
tn 1t burglar, were stealing nearer every
minute. | was sure that there was an
accomplice in the house, in my room.
| expected he would presently pounce
on me and pinion me. | half rose to es-
cape through M OF the front windows,
but remembered that | had nailed them
down-and that if it were not so, /
could not have left the chair into which
| fell back. 1t seemed to me | heard
the low regular breathing of the ac-
complice; and then, all at once, / was
sure | heard something very different,
something that set the blood bubbling
in my veins as music never did kefore-
the subdued whistling of a familiar
strain beneath my feet, and recognized
that it vas Tom, the scullion, who had
been belated, and was now keeping his
courage alive. But before | could