CHAPTER IV A FRIENDLY BURGLAR.

WE retired that night feeling that our hold on Minerva was stronger than it had been hitherto, and we slept the sleep of the unworried.

But we were awakened at a little past midnight by a noise as of a somewhat heavy cat coming up stairs. Miss Pussy is heavy, but her tread is absolutely noiseless, so it could not be she, and we could hear Minerva snoring in her room, so it was not she.

“It’s a burglar,” whispered Ethel, wide awake in an instant.

I did not like the thought, which waked me wide also. I like burglars in books, but in real life there are too many possibilities wrapped up in them to make them agreeable companions of the night.

I hope I am not a coward, but I am not war-like. If a burglar has resolved on entering my house I say let him get away with the goods and then I’ll lose no time in putting in burglar alarms so as to be prepared thereafter, but to get up and attack a burglar with a chair or to attempt to expostulate with him lies outside of my province, and I hoped that these sounds would prove to be caused by shrinking wood or cracking plaster.

Creak, creak, creak. There was not a shadow of a doubt that some one was coming up the stairs. Ethel pulled the pillow over her face and I could feel her trembling. I sat up in bed and tried to feel brave. Tried it two or three times in obedience to the old saying anent succeeding but to be honest I did not feel brave.

The steps came nearer and Ethel, whose hearing is wonderfully acute, suddenly threw off the pillow, and sat up in bed also, saying:

“Philip, we must not let Minerva hear him or she will leave in the morning.”

“Sh!” said I, “be still. There he is.” We both put on the semblance of slumber.

The moon was shining into the room and we now saw a burly looking fellow with a bag over his shoulder walk past our door and peer into the spare room.

The Wheelock furnishings are plain and our own belongings would pack in small space and bring little in open market and it struck both Ethel and myself in spite of our fears that it was very funny for a burglar to be looking for plunder in our cottage.

I fancy that he himself saw he had picked out a poor house, for he left the spare room, contented himself with a casual glance into our sparsely furnished bedroom and then went creaking down the stairs again. Burglars in books make no noise, but I am sure I could have gone down stairs more quietly than he did and I was in an agony of fear—no longer of him but that Minerva might wake up and become panic stricken.

The burglar went as far as the kitchen and then he actually stumbled over a chair and this brought about the dreaded result. Minerva waked up and the next instant we heard a husky,

“Is that you, Mis. Vernon?”

Next we heard steps in her hall and the query repeated in a louder tone,

“Is that you, Mis. Vernon?”

Then came a shriek. She had evidently encountered the burglar.

“Oh, Philip, what shall we do?” said Ethel. “Don’t you think it will be safe to go and tell the burglar to go away? Minerva will surely go into hysterics and leave in the morning.”

“She’s gone there now. Hear her!”

The noise occasioned by the advent of the bat was as nothing compared to the din that Minerva let out upon the midnight air.

And now we heard a man’s voice, the voice of the burglar.

“Be quiet. I’m not going to hurt you. I made a mistake in the house.”

Made a mistake in the house and the next one half a mile away!

“Philip, if he were a dangerous burglar he would have shot her by this. Go and speak to him and tell him to go away.”

It was a risky proceeding, but after all we had gone through I was determined to keep Minerva with us at any risk, so pulling a dressing gown over my pajamas and leaping into my slippers, I went down stairs choking down my rising heart.

I met the burglar coming down the back stairs with his hands in his ears to shut out the shrieks that arose from Minerva.

When he saw me he sat down on the stairs and said, “I thought so. I thought she’d waken the house.”

Now this was a queer way for a burglar to act and it gave me heart. By all the rules of burglary the man should either have given me one in the jaw or a bit of lead in the lung or else he should have rushed past me and escaped, but he sat down on the top step and reminded me of Francis Wilson by the quaintness of his intonation and the expression that came over his face.

“Come here. I won’t hurt you,” said I, much as I might talk to a huge mastiff whose intentions were problematical. “Are you a family man?”

“Yes,” said he, astonished by the question into answering it.

“Well, then, you will understand my position when I tell you that the girl whom you have started into hysterics up there is our cook, our only cook, and if we lose her we’ll be absolutely cookless. You’re a burglar, are you not? Be frank.”

“Well, if you appeal to me that way, I am,” said he.

“Well, she’s frightened stiff. Even if you go away now and nothing further happens she will follow in the morning because she will expect burglars every night. Now I’m going to try to convince her that you stopped in here to ask the way to the village or to borrow a book—anything but that you’re a burglar, and I want you to help me out.”

“The idea is farcical,” said he smiling quite as if we were having a friendly chat after a dinner in his honour.

“No doubt it is farcical,” said I, “but if I can overcome Minerva’s fears by any means I’m going to do it. She’ll go into a fit pretty soon if the cause is not removed.”

“She’s most there now,” said the burglar. And he told the truth. Minerva had not ceased to use each breath in the manufacture of wild yawps that outdid her performances the evening of the bat.

“I’ll go and tell her to dress and come down and I’ll explain it all to her. We have to handle her with gloves on account of cooks being so scarce. You understand?”

“I understand. I have a little home in Pittsfield and half the time my wife does the cooking although ‘business’ is unusually good.”

“What is your busin—?”

I noticed his bag and stopped. How absent minded of me to ask.

“I don’t believe it is always as bad as it is to-night,” said I with a laugh. “My income doesn’t admit of anything for burglars. I only make enough for myself and my wife.”

“I believe you,” said he. “I saw that when I got up stairs and if I had not kicked over that cursed chair I would have been a mile away by now.”

I started to call up stairs to Minerva when the burglar’s eyes moved to a point behind me and turning, I saw Ethel, fully dressed and very calm. Her fear of losing Minerva had overcome her fear of the burglar and she had come down to see what she could do.

“Ethel, this is the burglar who woke us up, but he has taken nothing, and he’s going to fib a little so that Minerva may be brought out of her hysterical state. Please go up stairs and tell her to dress and come down; that there’s no danger, but I want to see her about something.”

With excitement and amusement struggling for the mastery on her features Ethel went up stairs and in a few moments the shrieks subsided.

“What induced you to come to such a place as this, so far off the line of travel?”

“Exactly that,” said the burglar, “because it was off the line of travel and because I have made some of my richest hauls in houses like this.”

“Aren’t you ashamed to be a burglar?” said I, thinking that I might do some missionary work.

“Now see here,” said he, rising from the chair in which he had seated himself after Ethel had gone up stairs, “I did not come here to be catechised or criticised. I came here to do business and I found it was impossible, so let us forget that I am a burglar and that you are a poor man and bend all our energies to retaining the services of your cook. As a fellow American I feel for you and I’d hate to see ‘the Madame’ forced to do her own cooking through any fault of mine. By the way, how’s the larder?”

“The who?”

“The larder. What have you to eat?”

“Oh, I misunderstood you. I guess I can find something to eat. Are you fond of blueberries—not whortleberries, you understand, but blueberries.”

“All the same, ain’t they?”

“Not by a long shot. You’re evidently a city man. A blueberry is to a whortleberry what a wild cherry is to an oxheart. We have plenty of blueberries and some milk and I dare say Minerva can boil you some eggs if you care for them.”

“No, I don’t want to bother you or her. Cooks object to getting extra meals.”

I had not thought of that and I deemed it considerate in the burglar.

I led the way to the pantry, where I found a pitcher of rich milk and a pan of berries and when Mrs. Vernon and Minerva came down stairs, the burglar and I sat at the dinner table, eating berries like the best of friends.

“Frightened, Minerva?” asked I with a reassuring smile.

“Yas’r,” was the monosyllabic and therefore reassuring reply.

“I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Minerva,” said the burglar with an assumption of breeziness that sat very well on him.

Minerva smiled foolishly. She was abashed.

“I missed my way, Tom,” said he, turning to me, “and it’s a wonder I got here at all.”

“Will you please explain why you call me Tom,” said I, giving him a cue, “when my name is Philip Vernon.”

“Simply because I’ve been spending a week with Tom,” said he, “and he is very well indeed.”

“Hasn’t he had any return of those spells?” asked I with mock concern.

“No, Phil, Tom seems to be on the high road to recovery, now. His wife has a Dane for a cook and she makes the best omelets I ever ate. Can you make good omelets?” said he, turning to Minerva, whose eyes were riveted on this easy mannered friend who had reached our house so late.

“Yas’r.”

“Pardon my suggesting it, Mrs. Vernon,” said he, turning to my wife, “but would it be asking too much—”

“Why, I’m sure Minerva would be delighted to cook you an omelet. She knows what it is to be hungry. Don’t you Minerva?”

“Yas’m,” said she, going into the kitchen and setting a match to the fire which was laid in preparation for the morning.

“She looks like a good-natured girl—one who would stick to you through thick and thin,” said the burglar in a tone that would easily reach Minerva’s ears.

“Minerva’s a very good girl,” said Ethel, sitting down in the chair I had drawn up to the table.

We talked on various topics, much as if we had known each other for years, but this was due more to the burglar’s absolute ease of manner than to any self command on our parts. When Minerva came in with a smoking hot omelet he said,

“Handsomest omelet I ever saw. If it tastes like that I’ll eat every bit myself. You’re a born cook, Minerva.”

Minerva grinned and went into the pantry whence she emerged with bread and butter.

As for the burglar he kept up a running fire of talk about supposed friends of ours.

“Rather sad, that accident to Tom’s nephew, wasn’t it?” said he.

“I hadn’t heard of it,” said Ethel, while I admitted a like ignorance.

“Is that so? Tom is no letter writer. Why little Sanderson fell down an elevator shaft and ripped all the buttons off his shoes.”

He said this so seriously that it was all Ethel could do to keep a straight face.

“And Mary has finally decided to accept Jim Larkins. Seventeen times she had rejected him. Do you think they’ll be happy?”

“I hope they will,” said I, and then to make conversation I said,

“What’s become of Ed. Cortelyou?”

“I’m sorry to say,” said the burglar, with a long face, “that Ed.’s gone to the bad. It doesn’t pay to trust a young man with unlimited money. If I ever succeed in amassing a fortune—not that I feel especially encouraged just now—but if I ever do, I will tie it up so that Charley can not play ducks and drakes with it.”

“By the way, do you expect Charley to follow your profession?” said Ethel wickedly and unexpectedly.

The burglar helped himself to the rest of the omelet with a roguish grin and said,

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Kate is all for having him study for the ministry, but I’ve seen enough misery endured by young ministers whose hearts were not in their work and who were perhaps tortured by this modern spirit of doubt, and I tell her that the profession that was good enough for his father is good enough for him.”

There seemed to be something fascinating in the clear-cut tones of the burglar’s voice for Minerva stood in the kitchen listening intently to every word.

“I hope you will enjoin on him the necessity of being honest,” said Ethel with evident enjoyment.

“Example is better than precept, Mrs. Vernon,” said he, looking her straight in the eyes. “I’m not much of a preacher myself. I sometimes say to him, ‘Do as you see me do, my boy, but try to do it better.’ I do hope to enable him to make an easy entry into the homes of really good people. I tell him that it’s not always the richest who are the most valuable. He may be able to pick up something from a man who is comparatively poor, but who has good taste, and I tell him always to keep his eyes and ears open when he is in the houses of others, because there is no telling how profitable a good use of eyes and ears may be. The boy has quite a taste for rare china. He’s managed to get hold of some handsome pieces.”

“Do you allow him much spending money?” asked I with a deprecating smile.

“No, I don’t give him any stated sum, but he has his own ways of adding to his income. I believe in making a boy self reliant. He wasn’t over six when I gave him a little boost up the ladder as a starter, and told him to remember to rise superior to circumstances, and he made quite a comfortable nest egg. Went into the hen business. Selected his own hens and sold them at a profit. A boy that learns to be self reliant is years ahead of a boy who is pampered. Minerva, that was the best omelet I ever ate. I wish I could stay here and eat one of your breakfasts, but, Philip, if I expect to get to the McLeod’s to-night, I’ll have to be going right along. You see I expected to get here in time to dine with you, and leave about eleven, but I lost my way, and I know the Major will be expecting me and he won’t go to bed until I come. I’m awfully sorry to go.”

As he rose from the table I noticed the bag containing his plunder. Unless Minerva was an absolute innocent she would suspect that all was not right when he picked it up, but luckily at that moment she went out to the pantry to put away the milk, or something, and during her absence he picked it up with great nonchalance and walked out of the room, bowing to Ethel, who made a little gesture of repugnance when the real nature of his work was brought home to her in so concrete a manner.

I followed him out to the front door, where he deposited the bag on the step and said very suggestively,

“I believe I’ll give Minerva a tip if you have no objection. She deserves it.”

“Why, I have no objection,” said I, “but it isn’t necessary.”

“Pardon me if I differ,” said he, good naturedly, holding out his hand.

And then I understood that I was being held up.

“How much do you want to give her,” said I, wishing now that he was far away.

But his demand was very reasonable—comparatively speaking,—for he said,

“I think that five dollars and a quarter would be a fair amount for me to give. She may not get every cent, but I’ve talked a good deal to-night and the laborer is worthy of his hire. You’re a decent sort of fellow, or I might increase the amount.”

“You’ll have to come up stairs for it,” said I, “I never carry much in my pajamas.”

He followed me up stairs, his eyes roving all over the place.

“There must be a lot of high thinking done in this establishment,” said he, as he looked at the sparsely decorated walls.

“It was a high old thought to get you to pose as my friend. If Minerva stays with us I’ll think of you, and I wish that you might be induced to—”

“Don’t, that’s cant. You may think you mean it, but you don’t. If you read in to-morrow’s paper that I had been arrested, you wouldn’t drop one tear. You live your life, and I’ll live mine. If you ever have a chance to do a man a good turn, go ahead and do it, but I won’t lie awake nights wondering whether you’ve done it or not.”

“No, I suppose you’re not given to lying awake nights, but you may lie awake days and ponder on a good many things.”

“Don’t you believe it, my Christian friend,” said the burglar as we walked back to the kitchen, “I sleep the sleep of the just, and the reason I’m just, is because I never rob a man that I know to be poor.”

We had now come down stairs again, and he went out into the kitchen, and I heard him say to Minerva,

“Minerva, here’s some silver to add to your collection. And don’t ever make the mistake of leaving the Vernons. They are the salt of the earth. They may not be rich, but I am sure they’re kind, and if you know when you’re well off you’ll stay with them. I’ve known Mr. Vernon ever since he was a boy, and if I was looking for a position like yours I’d try to get one with him. And Mrs. Vernon is just as good. You stay by them and they’ll stay by you.”

“’Deed I will,” said Minerva with the unction of one who has felt a revival of religious feeling at a camp meeting. The burglar had actually aroused in her a sense of loyalty.

I was sorry to see him go. I’ve known many an honest man who wasn’t half as interesting, and I’ve known many an interesting man who was not much more honest, although I never had any words with a confessed burglar before. I actually found myself saying “Good luck to you,” as he shouldered his bag and went off down the tree-bordered road in the silver moonlight.