The age-herald., 1897-10-24
TIE RETIRED BURGLAR.
A Very Lively Experience Following Visit to
 a Farmhouse.

From tale New York Sun.
 AS a general thing" said the retired burglar, T stuck close to my legitimate line of work. and never took anything but what could carry off myself and dispose of easily, but occasionally when I was hard pressed I would take bulky things and s1Io the best I could with them. But it never paid, and some thing happened once that made me give up bilat sort of thing fer good.
 "A farmhouse that I was looking over one night had nobody in it, not a soul. They hadn't gcraa for long, that was plain enough. Everything was left just as it wss. They'd just gone off fer the night somewhere, maybe to party or something cf that sort, but they was just as far away now as if they'd been in Chira, and I might have carried the house off and they not know it, and that's what I did, pretty near.
 'sThere was scarcely amy small stun worth carrying off, and after I'd looked around a little I thought l might as well take load. I could dispose of 1t for something. l got together Tn the aDall a wagon loajd of stun, trunks ana ona thing and another all ready to load. I had been around to the barn previous ly to see if there was a horse left, be- cause didn't know but what they mgnt have taken the only one, but there was a horse there. He was a big, solrd-lock- ing horse, nothing. particular about hlnl one way or the other, except he looked like a strong horse that could pull al- most anything. 1 got the harness on him and hooked him into farm wagon and got him around to the slde or the house. I suppose I might just as well have taken him to the front, but there was no use of being reckless about 1t.
 "Wen. I loaded the wagon with the trunks and things till I'd got a pretty fair load. about all I thought l could carry and make time with, and then I started, and we jogged along the road comfortable as could be for a quarter of a mile or so, when there was squirrel or chipmuck or something run across the road, and I'm blessed if 1t didn't scare the old horse, and in about a second and quarter he was running away. And I sat there hangin' on to the reins and yarlkin' and sawin' and tryin to hold him up, and havin' just about as much effect on him as though I'd been a baby.
 About quarter of mfle further on T knew it because I had come that way-t1here w2s a bridge over a, brook that ran across the road, just @ common little bridge with parked poles on each sfie for a railing; there was a road on one side Of the bridge. too, through the water There was a house just thei other side of this brook, and l was afraid If the old horse went across the bridge hammerfng in that still night he'd wake up the folks and rouse the neighbor- hood, maybe. so I tried to steer him off through the brook. I thought he'd make less noise going through the water and I thought maybs the cold water would sober him. too, and make him step: and got twist on the reins and a braee on the dashboard and pulled an did get llim turned off little at the fork toward the brook and I thought I had got him started for it all right: but he shl:ered again for the bridge and couldn't begin to stop him.
 "The bridge railings were supported in crotched sticks: and from these raihngs there were poles along the little ap- proach on sach side of the bridge. and ends of these poles being in lower sheered back from the ford road to the bridge read he got the approach to the bridge all right himself but he swung the wagon just enough to throw the hind axle over tine end of the. pole pro- tecting the approal-h and it damned In soms way between the pole and the crotched stick supporting it, and busted the reach of the wagon and tore off the hind axle ard wheels before you could think; and the old horse went pound- ing across the bridge and half a mile further vet with the tail end of the wa gon trailing on the ground and scatterin' trunks and comfortables and I don't know what not all along the road. When I finally got him held up I was sitting in an empty wa gon with the dashboard up in the air and the floor sloping down to the ground
 ''I might have got another wagon and gone back and gathered up the goods. but there was too much risk in that; maybe I could have taken the horse along and got sometlhhing for him. but I might have been taken up for horse stealn'. and I didn't fancy that: so I just turned the old horse rol1nd and started him for horne and then started myself; ard that's the last try I made on bulk goods"