Under the Window Sash I

Dunstan Times, Issue 2173, 17 March 1903, Page 6

Under the Window Sash I

By jaattbem White, J*.

FRED APPLEBY" was 15, tall, strong and from Philadelphia, while Toni Wilton was one year younger and from New York; but during the summer, the Apple by s and the Wiltons occupied adjoining cottages at Lake Beach, and thus Fred and Tom always set off their Fourth of July firecrackers together.

The former seemed to know how to do almost everything, from constructing a big kite to sailing a boat; so, when the Wiltons decided to take a fortnight’s trip to the White mountains, and were compelled to shut up their house meantime, as the servants i unexpectedly left in a body, it was quite natural that Tom should atsk Fred to keep*an eye on it. “You remember how angry that English coachman w'as when father discharged him last week?” he hurriedly explained, just before the train left. “Well, he might hear in some way j about our all going off, and, although ; I don’t suppose he’d risk breaking in i himself, he rbay send a friend of his j down from the city, you know. So keep—” But at that moment the cats moved j off, and Tom had to ruh for them. Fred, however, fully comprehended | what was required of him, and re- | solved to prove himself worthy of the trust.

His mother being a widow, he had for the past two years been "man of the house” at home, and, indeed, his height and weight combined were calculated to keep small boys very uspectful in his presence. As soon as he had seen Tom safely gain the rear platform of the last car, Fred walked back to the cottages, which stood apart from the other houses in the village, the Wilton’s being bounded on one side by a wood.

There was neither fence nor hedge to separate the grounds from the Applebys’ and after making sure that every shutter had been closed, Fred strode back across the lawn to his own piazza.

"They might almost as well be open, though,” he reflected, “as all one has to do is to slip his fingers through the slats and lift the latch. They ought to have nailed them up as they do in the winter; but stop! I don’t believe a man could get his hand in. So I won’t worry about that point of approach.” Three times every day Fred walked around the cottage, which always stared back at him with the same closed, inhospitable air, and at the end of a week he concluded that the wrathful coachman must have forigotten all about the Wilton* and Lake Beach. However, he still kept up his careful daily inspection of the premises, thereby winning from his mother and sister the title of “the young guardsman.” One day, just before lunch, he caught up the baseball bat he always carried on these occasions, and started on his noon patrol. As he crossed the dividing line between the grounds, he distinctly heard a’shutter slam in the direction of the Wiltons’ dining-room, and quickening his steps, he rounded the corner of the wing in time to see the body and legs of a man dangling from a window on the ground floor, his head and arms being already inside. “Caught in the act!” exclaimed Fred, under his breath, as he dashed forward and fearlessly grasped the burglar’s coat with one hand, dropped the sash with the other, and then held his man down under it with both.

The robber screamed and kicked vigorously, but Fred paid no attention to the former and skillfully managed to avoid the latter; however, now that he had captured his man, like a good many other people similarly situated, he did notknowwhat to do with him.

He could not stand there holding his prisoner under the window for an indefinite period, and yet he did not like to release him, for fear he should prove to be stronger than himself; as it was. he had the rascal at a decided disadvantage, and Fred finally decided to keep him there while he shouted for help.

But on whom should he call? There was no man about the place, except now and then an old Irishman, ■who attended to the garden, and in an emergency like the present he was scarcely to be depended on; nevertheless, he was better than nobody, so the young guardsman began to shout: “Mike! Mike!” with all his lungs, at the same time pressing down the sash a little tighter on the thief, who, as Fred could now make out, was a youth not much older than himself, and very slim.

“That Englishman hasn’t forgotten, after all,” mused Fred, between his cries for the gardner; “and has been sharp enough to send some one with smaller hands than his own, too. But why he should have chosen broad daylight for his attempt passes me, although, to be sure, he may have thought, and with some show of sense, that nobody'd be on the lookout for burglars then. I wonder if 1 couldn't manage this young fellow by myself? But, no, I must have somebody here to bring a rope, help me bind him, and stand guard while I see if there's such a thing as a constable over in the village.”

During aU this time, the poor chap under the window had kept on kicking and crying out: “Oh. I say, let me up, won’t you? What do you want? I’m no thief. T tell you. Just let me explain.” But Fred only smiled grimly on hearing these entreaties, more than ever convinced of his man from the P.r.glishy way in which ho spoke. TTf.rt'ver. as he did not wish to do the youth any bodily harm, he raised the sash a trifle. The robber luckily had his hands on p #tsir inside, and thus enabled to

support his head and shoulders, otherwise serious consequences might have ensue. As it was, Fred already began to feel a sort of compassion for the not ill-looking boy, so early taught to walk in the paths of evil, when suddenly his sister Maud, attracted by the repeated shouts for Mike, came stealing cautiously around the corner of the house. “Fred, Fred!” she called, in a timid voice, “what is the matter?”

“I’ve got him!” replied her brother. And at the same instant Miss Maud caught sight of the burglar’s heels.

“6-h-h! ” she screamed, and started to run home.

But Fred called her back, and told her to bring him a piece of rope as quickly as possible. She-vanished at once, and then Mike appeared on the scene. Speedily breaking in upon all the old Irishman’s exclamations of wonder, Fred briefly explained how he had captured a young Englishman in the very act of entering the house by force, and that ns soon as the fellow was bound he was to guard him until a constable could be summoned. “An’ indade that I will, sur!” answered Alike, cheerfully. “An’ ycz say he’s afthcr bein’ an Englisman? Och. sure an’ now ould Ireland can pay back a bit av the grudge she owes ag'in ’em I ” “No, Alike, I don’t want any violence used if it can be helped. The fellow’s quite young, you see, and may be reformed yet. But here comes my sister with the rope.” And Fred dextrously caught the clothesline Aland threw' him at a safe distance, where she had taken up a post of observation in company with Mi's. Appleby; who was full of commisseration for the prisoner, conpied with entreaties to her son to be careful and not break his back with the window sash.

“Now, Alike, you hold his legs while I raise the window and slip this noose around his body.” “Oh, do look out, Fred,” cried Alaud at this point, “or it will catch about his neck and hang him! ” “An’shure, ’tw ould only be a bit afore his toime,” declared Alike.

Fred continued: "Are you ready, there? Hold him tight now.” And the window shot up, the noose went in, and the next moment Fred and Lis prisoner were brought face to face. "Why, how very respectable-looking he is!” whispered' Maud to her mother. “What a shame!” said Mrs. Appleby. “I wonder if he can’t be sent to a sort of reformatory school, instead of to jail?” And, indeed, the burglar was quite a handsome youth, very neatly dressed. But how angry he was to think he had been caught. “What authority have you here, I would like to know?” he demanded of Fred, slashing about him at such a rate that the latter had hard work to keep him under control. “I tell you I’m a friend of the family!” “So am I,” put in Fred, “and for that reason I don’t want you to get away, lit seems to me, though, that for a friend you have a rather queer way of visiting—coming down when nobody’s been at home for a week, and then trying to break in the house.” ' “But I was sent here for a gun, and told to open this very window.” “Ha, ha! a likely story!” laughed Fred. “Here, Mike, hold this chap while I go for the constable.” "One moment first,” interposed the thief, in a more conciliating tone, “If you’ll just unbind my arms n second. I think I can show you proofs of what I assert. It’s a letter which I’m prefty certain I put into one of my pockets yesterday.” “Which one?” asked Fred. “I prefer to take it out myself.” “As you please,” replied the other. “My inside coat pocket, right hand.” Sure enough, there was a letter there, and Fred loosened, his "hold a trifle when he perceived the address in Tom Wilson’s handwriting: MR. SHERMAN BROWN, No. West Thirty-sixth Street, New York City. “See what it says inside,” continued the prisoner, calmly. And to his utter consternation, Fred read as follows: “My Dear Sherman: Awfully sorry I’m not gems' to be at home; but I’ll lend you the gun with pleasure if you’ll take the trouble to go down to our house at Lake Beach and get it yourself. I’d send you the key, but father does-n’t think it’s safe to put it In a letter. However, with ycur slim Angers you can easily squeeze your hand through one of the shutters and lift the latch. Nothing’s nailed up. The gun stands in a corner of the dining-room, which is in the wing on the side next the woods. Would write mere, but am scribbling this while on the cars so as to mail it at the next stop. Your everlasting old chum, “TOM WILTON.” It was now Fred’s turn to be the victim,'and I think he suffered more during his attempts to explain matters than Sherman Brown had under the window sash. But the young Englishman (for such he really was) took the awkward mistake very good-naturedly. Mike was promised first choice of cast-off garments at the Appleby’s if be would beep quiet on the subject in the village, and after Fred had crawled in and secured the gun Sherman was prevailed upon to lunch with him. Before the afternoon train left for the city, the two had become very good friends, Sherman professing himself Lapp}- to have made the acquaintance of one so faithful to bis trust. At the same time, both boys would have been better pleased if Tom had not forgotten all about the watch he had asked Fred to keep.—Golden Days. r The Stnre of Mfe. On the stage of life there are always the same old sins and sinners, but there is no end to the variety shows they can furnish.—Chicago Sim. Wot Easily Gotten Hl«l Of. The men whom everybody is glad to see go to war, never get shot.—Washington (1».) Democrat.