Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-01-25
BY FRANK R. STOCKTON.
[CoPYRIGHT, 1SS9.l

William, aged two; two maid-servants and man; but in the summer we have frequent visitors and at the time of which 1 am about to write my Aunt Martha was staying with us.
 My house is large and pleasant, and we have neighbors near enough for so- cial purposes and yet not too near or too many to detract from the rural aspect of our surroundings. But we do not live in a paradise; we are occasionally troubled by mosquitoes and burglars.
 Against the first of these annoy ances we have always been able to guard ourselves, at least in a measure, and our man and the cook declare that they have become so used to them that they do not mind them; but to guard against burglars is much more difficult, and to become used to them would, think, require great deal of practice.
 For several months before the period of this narrative our neighborhood had been subject to visits from burglars. From time to time houses had been entered and robbed, and the offenders had never been detected.
 We had no police force, not even a village organization. There was small railway station near our house and six miles away was the cour ty-town. For fire and police protection each house. hold was obliged to depend upon itself.
 Before the beginning of the burglari- ous enterprises in our midst we had not felt the need of much protection in this direction; sometimes poultry was stolen, but this was q rare occurrence: and al- though windows and doors were gener- ally fastened for the night, this labor was often considered much more troublesome than necessary. But now Q great change had taken place in the feelings of our community. When the first rob bery occurred the neighbors were in clined to laugh about it. and to say that Captain Hubbard's habit of sitting up after the rest of his family had gone to bed and then retiring and forgetting to close the front door had invited the en- trance of . passing tramp. But when Q second and a third house, where win dows and doors had not been left open, had been entered, and, in a measure, despoiled, people ceased to laugh, and if there had been any mcrriment at all on the subject it would have been caused by the extraordinary and remarkable precautions Ithtll tiic tHlIduCp of thieves by night. The loaded pistol became the favorite companion of the head of the house; those who had no watch dogs bought them; there were new locks, new bolts, new fastenings. At one time there was a mounted pa trol of young men, which. however, was soon broken up by their mothers. But this trouble was unavailing, for at :,,A ,+l>. al
 As a matter of course a great many theories were broached as to the req sons for this disturbance in our hitherto peaceful neighborhood. We were at such a distance from the ordinary cen ters of crime that it was generally con sidcred that professional burglars would hardly take the trouble to get to us or to get away from us, and that, therefore, the offenses were probably committed by unsupported persons living in this part of the country who had easy means of determining which houses were worth breaking into and what method of entrance would be most feasible. In this way sone fami- lies, hitherto regarded as respectable families, had fallen under suspicion,
 So far mine was the only house of any importance within the distance of milo from the station which had not in some way suffered from burglars. In ono or two of these cases the offenders had been frightened away before they had done any other injury than the breaking of a window-shutter, but we had been spared any visitation whatever. After time we began to consider that this was an invidious dis tinction. Of course we did not desire that robbers should break into our house and steal, but it was a sort of implied insult that robbers should think that our house was not worth breaking into. We contrived, however, to bear up under this implied contempt and even under the facetious imputations of some of our lively neighbors, who declared that it looked very suspicious that we should lose nothing and even continue to add to our worldly goods while every body else was suffering from distractions.
 l did not, however, allow any relaxa- tion in my vigilance in the protection of my house and family. My time to suffer had not yet arrived, and it might not ar rive at all, but if it did come it should not be my fault I therefore carefully examined all the new precautions my neighbors had taken against the en- trance of thieves, and where I approved of them I adopted them.
 Of some of these my wife and did not approve. For instance, tin pan, containing iron spoons, the dinner-bell and miscellaneous collection of hard ware, balanced on the top stair of the staircase, and so connected with fine cords that a thief coming up the stairs would send it rattling and bounding to the bottom, was looked upon by us with great disfavor. The descent of the pan, whether by innocent accident or the ap- proach of burglar, might throw our little boy into fit, to say nothing of the terrible fright it would give my Aunt Martha, who was n maiden lady of middle age, and not accustomed to chatter In the night. A bulldog