The philosophy of Jake Haiden (late Jacob K. Huff) : $b selected from the columns of the Reading Times, Reading, Pennsylvania : with a biographical appreciation by his friend Henry W. ShoemakerHuff, Jacob K.
Philosophy
The philosophy of Jake Haiden (late Jacob K. Huff) : $b selected from the columns of the Reading Times, Reading, Pennsylvania : with a biographical appreciation by his friend Henry W. Shoemaker
Huff, Jacob K.
American essays; Huff, Jacob K., 1851-1910
It seems her father sold some cattle and hogs a few days previously and
had the money locked up in the bureau of his room. It was for this reason
that the daughter and the hired girl were told to take the twins, and
the four of them sleep in this particular room every night, while the
parents attended camp meeting. Some great revivalist on the style of
Peter Cartright was stirring up the people and everybody for miles around
flocked to the camp meeting and pitched their tents and were prepared to
spend several days on the camp ground.
There were several bad characters in the neighborhood and they knew the
old squire had money in the house because he hadn’t been to town since
selling the cattle and would hardly carry it with him to camp meeting.
On the second night after the squire and his wife had left home three
men broke through a kitchen window and began a search of the first floor
rooms, knowing the hired man and the boys slept up stairs.
When they discovered that some one inside the squire’s room was holding
the bolt in place they threatened to kill everybody inside the room if
they didn’t let them in. The twins (girls of six) screamed aloud on
hearing this threat, and their older sister called to the hired man up
stairs to come to their assistance. But no answer came from the upper
precincts. The hired man and the boys were too much scared to even make
any reply.
Then it was that the sister unbolted the window and crawled through and
dropped to the ground, ran quietly to the stable and saddled her horse,
with this very saddle, and rushed off to the distant camp ground through
a darkness that would frighten women of less nerve. Almost breathless she
reached the camp meeting just when the shouting hilarity was the highest,
and was told that her father was at the altar seeking salvation.
Without stopping to ask permission of anybody she walked swiftly up the
aisle to where her father was kneeling, recognizing him by the green coat
he wore, stooped and whispered in his ear: “Come home, father, at once;
there are burglars trying to break into the house!”
“Hell!” he exclaimed loud enough to be heard by the mourner on either
side of him, and said no more until he had saddled his own horse just
back of the camp ground, and the two galloped back home in time to
prevent the robbery. The burglars had taken their own good time to cut
a hole through the door, through which they could reach a hand and pull
back the wooden bolt; but the brave hired girl had stabbed the hand with
a pair of scissors every time it was thrust through, and thus protected
the house until the arrival of the squire and his fearless daughter.
The burglar on watch outside the house heard the approaching horses, and
warning his two pals inside, they all escaped. Next day the burglar with
the scissors wounds on his hands was arrested, and finally confessed and
gave the names of his pals, and the trio served two years in prison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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