Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-12-12
pITTSTON PUZZLED.

Nobody in Riverton could account for
the burglaries that were occurring with
such startling frequency 1t seemed that
all the best efforts of all the best citizens
in town were wasted in the effort to over
take the rogues and in spite of all they
could do the stores were entered as if the
very clerks were in partnership with the
thieves, and even the marshal were blind.
Then the fellows who had been playing
such havoc with the cash drawers and cut
lefy cases were not entirely satisfied with
that, and they had time and again entered
residences and had taken cash from the
clothing that was worn during the day,
and which seemed never to be safe from
the hand of the housebreaker.
Old man Pittston uad done all that he
could to make his stock of goods safe, and
when he went down town one morning and
found his statesmen aghast at the work of
the thieves in the night just passed he
swore he would find out who did it and
would send him to the penitentiary, even
if he were his own brother. He called in
Ludlow, the grocer, who kept next door,
and they two went at the business of fer
retng out the miscreants in the most me-
thodc manner.
"You slip down to your store at 10 O'Clock
tonight, go in and stay right there till
morning. said Ludlow, land I'll do the
same at mine. We will sleep there every
night foramonth, going home in he morn
ing before anybody is up. If there is any
thing in this town in the shape of thief,
we will get him, sure"
Lets just make little change" said
Pittston. You go in my store and will
go in yours"
Ludlow said "All right" but somehow
his neighbors thought he was a little re-
Iuctant about it. They did not keep up
the arrangement for a month. Ten days
over the counter and ten nights under it
were enough to satisfy them that a good
bed at home was better than watching for
burglar. Ludlow began to think there
wasn't anything in the scare anyway, and
Pittston agreed to try watching just one
night more and that was all. lie wouldn't
give up the comforts of home for all the
stores in Riverton. So he went to the i'm
provised couch that night and fixed things
little more comfortably than usual. He
was getting a score of aches in every bone
since this beastly vigil began. He went to
sleep about II o'clock. and he remembered
hearing Ludlow's lazy clock strike II. At
ter that he had a dim recollection of going
into the bank and ordering four pounds of
dry goods and a yard of tenpenny nails, to
pc use. III liihllltS lol tlIt man
who had broken into the stores That was
all
When he awoke the sun was shining
right in the window at the rear of the
store, and he could hear the butchers cart
JOlting up to the market two doors away.
pttaton got up, anathcmatiZing a man
WI woI'd sleep in the fumes of n grocery
siorn, ar Wishing he might be a Turk if
ever be- did such thing again He got
his tro, --.S bucllled NJ and wa, grouping
aDout iJr MS ouoes when 1t occurred 10
him tl.t the front door stood slightly aiar.
1ue hatcher eioileu past, looking in, his
clothes all iiccked with tallow and stained
with b, )pd. PittSton walked forward in
his stac"ing feet, his mouth gaping and
j., eye ,ctting bigger every minute. The
butcher damed down and examined the
dooraili and then stood up and yelled:
Here's Ludlow's store broke open
ag'ini''
Ludlow himself came out of Pittstons
place of business where he had put in a
faithful night, and there he and the dry
goods man stood face to face
"Have you allowed my store to be burg
iarized?" shouted the grocer
Where's your shoes?" asked the butcher
Where's your coat?" added the baker.
Poor Pittston was in heap of trouble.
He volunteered to stay in this mans store,
cherishing at the time IA dim idea that Lud-
low himself was in the robbers ring and
here he had slept while his neighbours
place of business was being plundered. He
grieved deeply over the wrong he had done
that neighbor in thought, and felt crushed
as few men in life ever feel, while he went
about hunting for those shoes and that coat.
He never found them. The rascals who
In, int. ha St1pa lIlt1 oinn tlN-
pert to pry the front door off its hinges, TO
carry away the cash drawer bodily and to
steal the very clothing of the man who lay
there TO guard he treasures. He was dis
graced in Riverton. Some of the holder
ones even talked of having him arrested
and char ed with the burglaries that had
been startling the town, but he was too
well established for that, and nothing
came of the talk But it went to his heart
with all the directness of an indictment.
That ended the spasm of home detective
energy, and it WAS not IA week before Pitt
ston's store was entered and roll of silk
was abstracted bodily. With it went lot
of staple goods that could no more have
been identified if found than could a
bushel of wheat in bin, but that silk he
would have known if he had seen it on the
head of "A naked black man on the banks
Then some one went to the postoffice and
took all the pennies and postage stamps in
stock. And "A night or two after the same
talent found its way into the hardware
store and captured a box of revolvers. The
harness man was the next to suffer, but he
was hurt the worst, for all the buggy har-
uesses he had been making for the past year,
and intending to display at the fair in DC
tober, were taken from theirSpegs and car
ried away to keep company with the whips
and robes that had gone in previous forays
"Where you goin', Pittston?" asked the
drayman of the dry goods man as the two
stood at the depot one morning waiting
for the train to the city
"Oh, going to lay in my fall and winter
stock of goods replied the dealer.
"Loadn' mp for the burg are youY
4uericd The draymau, Tor .t.,-..oa could
not soon forget 50 good jJAe, and it wa
u good ipke-this man lying asleepin Lud
Aow's grocery while thieves went through
the store.
n, 4 J.;