Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/215

206 Pacer. The horse went along the road, and seeing father didn't direct him, turned into the lane leading to the house. There was an old red gate at the end of it, and he stopped in front of it, and waited for father to get out. Then he passed through, and instead of going up to the house, turned around, and stood with his head toward the road.

"Father never said a word, but he was doing a lot of thinking. He went into the house, and found the old man sitting over the fire, rubbing his hands, and half-crying about 'the few poor dollars,' that he said he had had stolen from him. Father had never seen him before, but he knew he had the name of being half-silly, and question him as much as he liked, he could make nothing of him. The daughter said that they had gone to bed at dark the night her father was robbed. She slept upstairs, and he down below. About ten o'clock she heard him scream, and running downstairs, she found him sitting up in bed, and the window wide open. He said a man had sprung in upon him, stuffed the bedclothes into his mouth, and dragging his box from under the bed, had made off with it. She ran to the door and looked out, but there was no one to be seen. It was dark, and snowing a little, so no traces of footsteps were to be perceived in the morning.

"Father found that the neighbors were dropping in to bear the old man company, so he drove on to Sudbury, and then returned home. When he got back, he said Jacobs was hanging about the stable in a nervous kind of a way, and said he wanted to speak to him. Father said, very good, but to put the horse in first. Jacobs unhitched, and father sat on one of the stable benches and watched him till he came lounging along with a straw in his