Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1903-05-15
A BURGLARS SCHEME.

ing right UP the side of house, as a good
way of getting into it; and / demonstrated
that it could be done, too. got the start
If that notion from seeing telegraph line
men walk up telegraph pole, digging their
steel spurs into the pole as they climbed
But they, of course, had the advantage Of
being able to put their arms around the
pole; they had firm support there; a man
couldn't well put his arms around a house,
you know.
But got another idea presently from
cat. Cats, you know, are the goldarndest
climbers you ever saw; they can go right up
the face of a board fence without any
trouble whatever. They just make a run
at it and spring half way, and then climb
the rest of the way with their claws right
up the VERTICAL face of a fence.
"Why shouldn't do that! / don't mean
jump half way up the, side of a. house, but
why shouldn't | be able to handle claws as
well as cat could? So, having supplied
myself with a set of lineman's foot irons, |
went to the blacksmith who used. to make
the peculiar kind of crowbar specially
adapted to use in my profession and got him
to make me a pair of hand-claws; stout
leather gloves with a keen, stout, sharp
pointed steel hook at the end Of each
finger.
apparently was equipped all right now
I had claws on all fours. But when |
came to try them, which | did on my own
house after dark, | found they didn't work.
Clapboarded house, mine was, and being of
wood l didn't see why my claws shouldn't
work all right on it; but they didn't, and
the next time | saw cat go up a board
fence | discovered the reason why.
The cat invariably goes up such fence
on one of the posts, or on one of the YER
teal boards set along al regular intervals
and nailed to the boards to bind them to-
gether and keep them trim; the cat going
up these posts, and so on, because in them
it gets wood with the fibre running up and
down. into which it is much easier to sink
the claws than it would be into wood
running crosswise.
81 practiced up little on the corner of
my own house, didn't dare mark 'em too
much for fear the neighbors would wonder
what all the marks meant-and then start
ed out one night to try my claws. There
was as many wooden houses in the town
where l was living then as there was brick,
if not more and all | had to do was to pick
out my house and tackle it.
"The house | lit on, finally, had a veranda
that l could have Skinned up in a minute
the difficulty about that Of making a great
rafting and swapping when you got on to
its tin roof, to say nothing of the veranda's
being on the street front of the house. And
then the corner of this house that l had
decided to tackle had a second-story window
opening close to it, that | knew l could
reach from it; so there | goes.
Il had put on my climbers before left
home, and now l put my claws on, and
hung my bag over my shoulder by strap,
and started. And it was hard work, can
tell you, from the go-off.
This man took better care of his house
than l did of mine, and for one thing it
was better painted. There was mighty
little paint on my house and could put
those claws into the wood easily. l had
to make right down effort to do this here,
and it was hard work.
81 set my right claw into one side, and
then my left claw into the other, as high
above the ground as l conveniently could
while standing on it, and then | raised one
foot off the ground and jammed my climb
ing spurs in ON one side and then raised
the other and jammed in that; and then
was like jumping jack on a stick after
it's been pushed up together
And so | worked my way up the corner
of that house | could do it all right, but it
was the hardest work l ever undertook
at all, and slow. Well, l began to think
it would be daybreak before | got up to that
second-story window, but | got up to that
level finally and had stepped one foot over
on to the sill of this window and had hooked
one claw onto the cap of it. when | hears
a man saying:
"'Well, of all the gosh-blasted fools |
ever saw, you certainly are the gosh-blasted-
est Come in and let's see you'll and he
laughed till thought he'd wake up all the
neighbors.
And it seems I'd woke him up early in
my climbing, and he'd been looking at me
for ten or 10 minutes through the crack
between the house and the blind. What
woke him first was my jamming the spurs
down so hard as l had done to get firm
footing; doing that I'd Jared the whole
house. And when he came to the window
to see what was up he found me Juggling
away and putin and BLOWN like a por-
poise, and | know that I'd forgotten about
everything else in the world but the climb
ing.
"All the things what he told me he said,
of course after I'd got in through the win
dow, which | did at his earnest request
Him being a larger and ADLER man, physi-
cally, than |, and | being pretty tired, as
you may imagine from my climbing, there
was nothing for me to do but to accept
his invitation.
''He said he supposed l must have made
a nutmeg crater of that corner of the house,
and he reckoned it would cost him as much
as s. to get the holes puttiod up but he'd
stand that, he said and then he laughed
AGAIN abOut as hard q he had af first and