Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1908 — TALE of AN UMBRELLA [ARTICLE]

TALE of AN UMBRELLA

My husband was a collector for th* Safety Insurance company, and he had gone down to B. to collect the sums gathered by the agents in that town. He had already been away a week and had telegraphed me that morning to the effect that he intended returning that same afternoon, but it was 10 o’clock p. m. before I heard the welcome click of his latchkey. As we crossed the hall he stopped and took down his overcoat from the peg, at the same ticne taking his umbrella in his other hand and saying: “Rhoda, my dear, you may as well put this in the lumber room. It ia smashed entirely now,” And he laughingly opened his old “gamp,” which was Indeed a complete wreck. I took it from him when he had closed it, and while he went to kiss our little ones I flung the umbrella Into a distant corner of a dark closet under th* attic stairs. Next morning Edward kissed us as usual and set off, looking bright, strong and happy. About 11 o’clock 1 was busy making a pudding for an early dinner when an unusually peremptory knock at the hall door startled me. I hastened to open it and was surprised to confront two strangers, my hust&nd—looking pale and troubled—and Mr. Snell, the director of the company by which my husband was employed. They walked In, and Mr. Snell at once addressed me. “Mrs. Falkner, forgive this intrusion, but your husband has lost his pocketbook—or at least he says so—containing bills to the value of $3,500.” “Lost! Oh, Edward, how could it happen?” I cried. “I don’t know,” he said mournfully. “I had It In my overcoat pocket last night after I came home, and, as you know, I took my coat Into our bedroom, and it was there (the coat) this morning, for nobody went Into our room except ourselves.” "Areybusure you brought it home?” I asked.

“Sure! Yes, of course I’m sure!” he said impatiently. “Then in that case we must search the house,” said one of the strangers. “Oh, do; oh, do,” I said eagerly. “It must be somewhere about” “In the meantime I must ask you to stay in this room,” he responded, and they went out of the room, leaving us alone with Mr. Snell. The book could not be found in the house, and, though all was done that could be in the way of advertising and offering rewards, all our efforts were unavailing. Edward was discharged from his situation, and many of the people of the town did not scruple to say he had appropriated the funds to his own use. However, the directors were not among these, and as they quite believed them lost prosecution was of no avail. Still, they could not keep in their employ a man guilty of such culpable carelessness. The house we lived in was our own, having been presented to me as a wedding gift, so we decided to stay in it, but to sell the better part of the furniture. This we did, and Edward went to America, where he succeeded in obtaining a post as clerk in New York. Time went on, and more than two years had passed since our trouble. I had let my unfurnished rooms to a nice quiet family and undertaken to attend to them, which enabled me to keep the wolf from the door. My two little girls were now growing up and w ould soon require to go to school, an expense which I was not as yet prepared to meet. For two years I had not seen my husband, and I felt the separation keenly, and I could not help the yearnings of my heart creeping into my letters. Edward noticed this, and in March, 1880, he wrote telling me to prepare to come out to him next month. He would forward me the requisite funds. We were greatly excited and began packing at once. I sold the house for SI,OOO and paid the money to Mr. Snell as part payment of the missing $3,500 and also sold the larger articles of furniture. The latter sum helped me to provide a few necessaries for our wardrobes.

The money came from Edward, and all was now prepared when I remembered th® lumber in the stairs closet and told the charwoman to bring it out. She did so, my little girls helping her. I had gone downstairs for somethin* when I heard a cry of surprise, and Mrs. Egan, the charwoman, came running downstairs bearing in one hand a dusty old umbrella of my husband’s and in the other the long lost pocketbook. She had found it in the umbrella, she explained. Instantly it was clear to my mind. As my husband closed the old “gamp” that night, now three years ago, and flung his coat over his arm the pocketbook must have slipped down into the umbrella. In less than an hour I had banded it to Mr. Snell and wired my husband the joyful news. Instead of our going to America my husband came back to England and on the 24th of May, 188—, resumed his duties as head collector of the Safety Insurance company, and I’m proud to say he etill holds that post. We kept the “gamp” as a curiosity and shall hand it down to posterity as th* instrument which nearly gave my husband penal servitude.—London News.