Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1903-03-05
Their Hired
Burglar
By D. F. mcguire.
ITS preposterous!"
"JdiOtic!"

\ r&ka'1z&s&k&s&R<t<
81 IT'S preposterous!"
"Idiotic!"
"Asinine!"
"But it's a fact, nevertheless aoo-
ed the first speaker.
So it was. There had been an cpl
demic of petty burglaries in the town
of Benton during the late fall. The ar
ticles stolen were of trifiing value, never
money, usually food taken from barns
and hensheds; but the constant fear
of possible midnight awakenlngs put
the good people of the town into a state
bordering upon panic.
The unknown thief mi ght grow more
ambitious and more daring. He might
invade their very houses. Whose house
would he first select as the object of his
unwelcome attentions?
The burglar, or burglars-whoever
they were-evidently were not profess
SIGNALS; at least up to the present they
had not ventured after bigger game.
Nevertheless the uncertainty of the
thing made the nervous more nervous
and introduced the hitherto uninitiated
into the knowledge that they possessed
nerves after all.
The board of selectmen, three worthy
citizens, feeling the popular pulse, and
realizing that election day would come
in few months, determined to take
active steps to ferret out the despoil-
er of the towns barns and hen roosts.
The step, which, after mature DELHI
Grafton, the selectmen decided to take,
was not as a result of a unanimous vote
of the triumvirate. Selectman Dorcas
had raised dissenting voice, accom-
panying it by sarcastic allusion as to
the sanity of his colleagues.
Mr.. Dorcas kept general store.
Among host of other things he sold
revolvers and ammunition, the sale of
which during the past two months had
wonderfully increased; so that it is
barely possible that he was giving a
thought or two to his own interests.
as we'll as to those of the town of Ben
ton.
The motion of Selectman North was:
"Mr. Chairman, as the burglar we
are all so interested in catching seems,
from evidence that has laid before
our eyes-mine, at any rate-to be
well acquainted with the barns and hen
roosts of the town, and appears, there
fore, to be resident, move that we
order all residents of the town-men,
women and children-to prove where
they were between the hours of ten
and IL o'clock last Tuesday night, at
which time, as we all know, occurred
the last, or rather the latest, of these
pestiferous burglaries.''
Almost out of breath, Mr.. North had
sat down, to give place to Mr.. Dor.
cas-, who had jumped to his feet and
cast glance of whitening scorn up
on his colleague. But Mr.. Swain, the
chairman, cast the deciding vote, and
the resolution was carried.
As might be expected, the result
of the special meeting of the board
of selectmen was not received with
unanimous favor by the people of
Benton.
The town was not very large, but
1t was large enough (what town
1sn't?) to contain more than one esti-
mable citizen who, for good and suffi-
cient reasons, did not care to have
D his fellow townsmen-to say nothing
of his wife-know where he had
spent certain hour of a certain
night, and what he had been engaged
in.
OF course, those fortunate citizens
who CHANGED to have nothing to con-
ceal did not see anything very pre-
posterous, idiotic or asinine in the
latest exhibition of acumen on the
part of their chosen lawmakers.
Deacon Thomas Snow, however
was not one of these; neither was
his brother-in-law, Zenas White, no,
Amos Bristow. When Snow declared
that the selectmen had acted in i
preposterous manner his opinion was
echoed, through the medium of vary
ing epithets, by White and Bristow.
''Can we," demanded Snow, EN-.
phasizing the pronoun, "afford-'
Dare" interpolated White.
dare to admit where we were and
what we did last Tuesday night?"
The others groaned, and White
said:
what would folks say?"
''What indeed!"
LET me think the thing out" sale
snow.
Nobody objected, SO Snow thought;
81 don't believe such a monstrou!
order can be carried out; the people
viii rebel"