Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 August 1889 — THE CHICKEN THIEF. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CHICKEN THIEF.

A Humorous Sketch.

BY HACKSTONE.

HEN I was much ►younger than I am now, and used a different set of thoughts to work with, it seemed to me that the chief end of young manhood was to have a girl or two and a horse and buggy. The other innocent

things a young man needs didn’t bother me much, neither did the horse and buggy, but the girls made the trouble. I can’t say that I wanted to marry fill the girls I waited on; indeed, the girls’ mothers used to give it out among themselves that I didn’t want to marry any of them, and this innocent fact disturbed me, because I used to think a girl’s mother ought to be satisfied when she found I was not going to take her daughter away and keep her. I couldn’t understand/it, but just as I would begin to get along nicely with a girl, the mother would come on the scene and make all sorts of intimations that I couldn’t comprehend. I would smile and laugh, and try in all of ways to make the mother think I thought her smart and funny. lut it wouldn’t work. It was always only a

matter of time when I would go calling and find the mother in the parlor playing “Home, Sweet Home,” and the daughter—well, the daughter’s whereabouts varied. Sometimes it was business, sometimes sickness, or out of town, or something which signified absence from where I thought she ought to be. "When I look back on some of those evenings now they seem very dull, but then they were interesting, because I couldn’t quite make the matter out. The mother would say a few' words, then she would thrum a chord of “Home, Sweet Home,” then I would say something, and she would say “Yes,” then she would say “Excuse me, please.” During the ten minutes of her absence I would work my poor head for all it was worth, and get a set of questions and answers all arranged for us, but when she came back and I set my dialogue in motion, somehow or other what I conceived to be funny would fall flat, and what I thought real smart and serious, she would laugh at, just as if it was funny. Of course I didn’t want to be rude and rush right out of the house while everything was in a dead calm, nor did I feel like going when she was laughing at something that wasn’t funny. The fact is, it was hard to stay, and there didn’t seem to be any proper time to go. When I did get away, I would blame the poor girl for having such an uninteresting mother. Then I would get another girl—or, rather, try to get another girl’s mother. My success would run right along in the same channel of its predecessor, and then the mother would spring the old formula-in-chief on me, with such as the changed conditions seemed to warrant. I finally got tired of that variety which had such a sameness to it, find made bold one day to teM a mother so. She didn’t say it in so many words, but she made me understand that, as I didn’t like her style, the next time she caught me on the place, she would “sic” the dogs

on me. The three dogs were not particularly large or vicious, but they had big barks, and when I left the mother still talking and gesticulating, I thought about that, and I made up my mind the bloody nose I had got with the girl’s former beau wasn’t in vain. I’d just quit the old lady and cultivate the negro cook and the dogs. “Now, lookee yere, Marser H.,” the cook said to me shortly after the fracas with the mother, “es yer wants to cum in de kitchun to see de young missus, ’cause you an’ de ole missus don’t ’zackly git along, Susan ain’t er carin’, an’ bein’ as how de ole missus done tole us you’re name wa’n't gwine to be talked about yere, I isn’t gwine to tell nobody when you is here, jes’ so long you don’t bodder Susan, and dat’s me. De young missus is in de kitchun waitin’ fur you now, an’ you jes’ go in while I gits some wood.au’ watches out for dem niggers what’s er prowlin’ erbout yere for ter hook de chickins.” Now that we have got to the chickens, just leave me in the kitchen with Aunt Susan and the “young missus,” while we take a look at the “ole missus,” up-stairs. It is dark up in the hall, but you can see her “laying” for the chicken thief. She’s got the two hired men downstairs trained to run out at a signal, and no doubt the old gentleman will exchange his paper for a gun when she gives the word. It’s awful lonesome work watching for a chicken thief—-he comes when you don’t expect him; you hear the chickens cackle (those that he hasn’t got), and before you’re ready he is off. My lady, though, knew the w ay of the chicken thief, and she made it her business to pace up and down the hall, peeping out of the front door occasionally, then out of the back door, and then out of a dark room which looked right down on to the trees where the chickens were made to roost, expressly to trap the chicken thief. You may be sure the old lady had a lonesome job pacing around to her lookouts, and it is not strange that she fell a wondering why the “young missus” took such a sudden interest in cooking and ironing; it is not strange, either, that she “smelt a mouse” the first pop, and sneaked down stairs to see how her daughter looked cooking or ironing.

Well, we won’t follow the mother down into the kitchen; just suffice it to say that the visitor had a seat near the kitchen window, convenient to the ground. He’s all right, the old lady can’t catch him in the kitchen, because there’s a line between the door and that window, and on that line is a big sheet. Just never mind him ; let’s go out and see what the chickens are cackling about. The mother rushed to the back porch at the first cackle, turned out the dogs and hired men, all of which set up such a racket that the last hen on the place fell to squawking. From the porch the mother directed the hunt for the thief, ordering the men in the shrubbery, the dogs somewhere else, until the air was so thick with orders and counter-orders that a regular bedlam was there. When they all got tired of yelling and running about to no purpose they settled down seriously to look for the thief. The dogs would run up to a little bunch of shrubbery and stop. Then they would seem to give up the hunt until ordered on again, when they would go right to that same bush and stop. This attracted the attention of the hired men, and, alas for the fugitive, they looked in there and found a man. The mother was so overwhelmed with joy when she saw the two strong men holding the game she had been after so long that she ordered him bound hands and feet and carried in the bottom of their springless w agon to jail. “Dot’sright, missus,” shouted Susan; “hab de no ’count rascal toted off to de dungeon,” When they got the culprit bound hand foot they laid him down on his back in the snow, while they hitched up the team that was to cart him off i The whole family, Aunt fjJusan and all, looked on from the porch, and when the two strong men tossed him in the wagon like a sack of potatoes, and drove away with him, the household congratulated themselves on being well rid of a troublesome rascal. - At the breakfast table the n«xt

morning the ehicken-tjiief was the chief topic, and when breakfast was over the “young missus” slipped into the kitchen to discuss another side of the affair with Aunt .Susan. "You may be sure,” said Aunt Susan, “dat dat ere white man done got to de big road 'fore de dogs got out for de chicken-tnief, case he popped out en de widder jes as ole missus came into de door. He had time enough to get away ’fore de han’s got out after de hen squawk. No, honey, you kin jes bet dey didn’t nobody see him.” Just then a boy called with a note. “Ah!” exclaimed the young lady, “here’s a note from him telling us all about it,” and she hastily tore open the letter and began to read: My Dear Miss—Please send my horse home aud tell my folks that I ■won’t be home to-day—-maybe not for several days. You will find the horse down in the lane, where 1 left him last night before I had the misfortune to step on that miserable old hen. I don't ask this as a favor for myself, but out of sympathy for my horse ; he must be hungry, and 1 know he would like to lie down once more on a soft bed with his clothes off. I can sympathize with him. Yours in jail, Hackstone. I never spoke to the girl after I got out, but whenever I would see her she smiled a smile that I didn’t like.

SEARCHING FOR THE THIEF.