Democratic Sentinel, Volume 1, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1877 — BEATING A BURGLAR. [ARTICLE]

BEATING A BURGLAR.

The Night Marauder That Crept Under Mlsa Johneon’e Bed, and What Befell Him. [From the New York Times.] Misti .Tohnaon, of Evanston, N. x., being an nnmarried lady,. not wholly unconnected with the milliner’s trade, and full of womanly independence, resides entirely alone in a small house containing but three rooms—a kitchen, shop and bedroom. It was about 11 o’clock last Friday night, when Miss Johnson stooped down and looked under her bed for a possible man, precisely as she had done on ten thousand previous nights. Whether she was, or was not, astonished at perceiving a large-sifted man lying under the bed, with the back of his head toward her, will never be known, but, at any rate, she gave no sign of astonishment, and did not even inform the man that she saw him. On the contrary, she resumed with great deliberation the nocturnal twisting of her back hair, and even softly hummed “Hold the Fort” with as much distinctness as could be expected of a woman while holding a comb between her teeth. Her back hair being finally finished, she opened her window, turned down the lamp until it gave forth a dim and modest light, and then stepped gracefully into bed, but not to sleep. That sagacious woman was perfectly well aware that the man under the bed, not suspecting that he had been discovered, would creep forth with the view to plunder as soon as he found that she was asleep. The bedstead stood in the corner of the room, and from the position of the man it was plain that he would creep out at the side of the bed. Miss Johnson, therefore, changed her usual manner of composing herself to rest, and lay, as she subsequently expressed it, “flat as a pancake,” with her head projecting over the side of the bed at the precise locality where she expected the man to appear. For at least half an hour she lay perfectly still watching for the man with a stealthy vigilance that would have done credit to an astute and experienced cat. Not a muscle or a hairpin of her frame moved, and her breathing was as low ana regular as that of a profound sleeper. At length the man, confident that she was asleep, softly began to worm himself from under the bed, moving after the manner prescribed by way of penalty to the original serpent of the Garden of Eden. Little did he imagine that a pair of pitiless gray eyes were waiting for the appearance of his head, while a pair of lithe and nervous hands were ready topounce upon his ears. It was not many minutes, however, before each ear was suddenly caught in an inexorable grasp, and his head began to oscillate with remarkable speed between the floor and the edge of the bedstead. Von Moltke himself could not have surpassed Miss Johnson’s tactics. She had the man completely at her mercy, and he was as helpless as though his head were in the stocks. At first his captor maintained a grim silence, but after she had bumped him sufficiently to ease her mind she addressed him upon the Wickedness and folly of seeking to rob her. In vain did the man protest that his motives were innocent; that he had mistaken the house, and had merely intended to take a quiet nap under his own bedstead, where the flies could not find him. Miss Johnson sternly told him that he could not make her believe any such nonsense, and that she would “ let him know,” and would also “ show him.” These threats were carried out by a renewal of the bumping process, until the man yelled for mercy*so loudly that the neighbors were aroused, and rushed to Miss Johnson’s house with the firm conviction that a gang of burglars had murdered that excellent woman, and were quarreling over the division of her spoils. It was not until a strong force, armed with clubs and hatchets, had recklessly entered the room that Miss Johnson surrendered her captive, with the remark that the sooner they took themselves off the better, and that if any other man would like to hide under her bed, she was entirely ready to knock a little sense into him.