Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-12-24

The old one must nave caught hre through spontaneous combustion.
 One August day few years ago I was headed for Newport and my villa when l saw smoke Issuing from q farmers barn. jumped the roadside fence, ran to the barn and saw that it was on fire and then hustled for the house and gave the alarm. The farmer had two hired men, and the family were eating dinner. All rushed for the barn, but 1t was too late. l worked as hard as any one in trying to save things and as n reward was taken into custody as an incendiary. The farmer pretended to remember that I had come along two or three years before and made threats because he would not feed me.
 ''I was locked up in the smokehouse while messengers were sent for con stable. Travellers on the highway and other farmers gathered, and for n time there was talk of stringing me up to limb. Did protest and deny? Not word. It would have been breath thrown away. l caught just one sympathetic look in that crowd, and that was from the farmers wife. Soon after l had been locked up the fire spread to wagon shed, calling the crowd away, and then the woman came to the snokehousc and passed me a crOwbar through little wicket and said:
 "'Dig your way out through the back wall as soon as you can. My husband set the barn on fire with his pipe, but they will send you to prison if you don't get away
 Stammered His Thanks.
 "I began to stammer my thanks, but she cut me short by saying that she would meet me at a certain dead tree mile down the road at Il o'clock that night and go on the tramp with me, and so l turned to my work. The smokchouse was of brick, but I busted out a wall in five minutes and took leg bail through the orchard At II o'clock that night l was ten miles away and still going. I can't say that the woman kept the dead tree date, but the chances are even up that she did. She probably called it a case of ingratitude on my part, but it wasn't. It was doing the best thing for her to keep away.
 ITO get case Eearer home, l came into town two weeks earlier last fall than usual on account of a woman. In sauntering through New Jersey q con stable picked me up on charge of horse stealing, the very last offense against the law that a dilapidated gen tleman would think of committing He might as well steal a sawmill. However, I should probably have been convicted of the crime had not the real thief confessed. That put the court in a hole, and to get even with me was charged with being suspi cious person and given q sentence of thirty days. Over in Jersey you are a suspicious person if you can't tell how far it is from the Cape of Good Hope to New Zealand. It was thirty days or a fine of S1O, and q widow among the spectators in court stepped forward and came down with the cash. She said could go home with her and work out the fine trimming the or chard aud digging potatoes, and she pretended to see the closest kind of resemblance between me and a school master who had once loved her, but died before the matrimonial knot could be tied. What did do? Why, just as any sensible, chivalric dilapidated gen tleman should do. You could see TO- nance. sentiment and a spirit of ad- venture in that Woman's eyes, and after expressing my thanks for her kindness I got out of the courtroom through a window and ran for dear life Several men took after me- but they stood no show. When a d. g. is running away from woman filled with romance and ready to go tramp. ing he has wings, and 1t takes an aero. plane to overhaul him." M. QUAD.