Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 72, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1916 — A BENEFICIAL BURGLARY [ARTICLE]

A BENEFICIAL BURGLARY

By ALAN HINSDALE

I am an auto enthusiast because I am especially fond of roving, and I can rove to better advantage in a car than in any other way. Touring in the autumn, when the leaves are turning, | find delightful. One evening in October about sunset I passed a cozy place a short distance off the road and determined to ask to bp housed for the night. Finding the gates locked. I left my auto in the road and, climbing the fence, walked up to the house. There was an ominous silence. Not a dog, pot a chicken, not even a cat, gave evidence of life. The nearer view showed me that the window shades were drawn. One shade had not been entirely puHed down, and I fcould look into the living room. What gives Some rooms an air of comfort that others do not possess, unless it is the taste of the furnisher, I don’t know. This room was especially inviting, so inviting that I yielded to a temptation to force an entrance. I made a burglar of myself and with an iron bar found on the place jimmied the window and went inside. There was a well filled wood basket beside the fireplace, and I lighted a fire and

sat down in a big easy Chair before it. I dreamed all sorts of dreams about the place, but they all connected me with it, and they were ail dependent upon a lovely Imaginary girl who was to make me happy In it. After awhile, hearing a step on the porch without. I turned and saw the object of my dreams looking in through the window. At any rate, a girl was there and evidently interested in the person within. I arose and went to the window, the girl retreating before my advance. “Don’t be frightened,” I said reassuringly. “I’m not a burglar.” And I explained to her how I happened to be there. She heard me through, then told me that the place belonged to her. She would not come inside, but after some hesitancy told me a bit of a story. She had been born and lived near by. She became engaged, and her fiance had built the house with the intention of their making a nest together in it when they were married. It was all ready for tbeir occupancy, and they were to have been married in a few days, when her lover sickened and died. She had never been in it since a few days before his death. Having seen a light in the window, she had come from her home to discover what it meant. I apologized for trespassing and offered to vacate immediately. “No,” she said; “I wish you would remain as long as you like. You have broken a melancholy spell. I live where I can see this house all the while, and I think that it has kept me in an abnormal condition. The moment I saw the light in it that spell seemed to snap.” She asked me to go to her home with her for the evening. I did so, and she introduced me to her mother, a sister and a brother. I passed a pleasant evening with intelligent and refined persons, and when bedtime came I was offered a room for the night. “No,” I said, looking at the girl who had told me her story. “I think it would be better for you that some one should sleep in your house.” She made no reply to this, but asked me to come to her home for breakfast the next morning. I proposed that the family come to the other house for breakfast. Her mother urged this, and I left them expecting them to come to me the next morning. I slept hi the best bedroom, which was in readiness, and the next morning arose early to make a few necessary preparations. Jn due time my hosts appeared, and all except the bereaved girl took on the merriment of a picnic. But I was happy to find that before the meal was over she had lost much of her sadness. Before I left my newly made friends she said to me: “If at any time while you are touring you find yourself in this neighborhood please feel welcome to remain overnight here.” I accepted the offer, intending to do that very thing. The next month I rode out to the place, called on my hosts of my first visit, and we all spent the evening together in the vacant house. I asked permission to use the premises for a few friends at Christmas time, and it was granted. I had a special object in this, which was to get the. bereaved girl used to merrymaking there. I told my friends her story and that I proposed to make her one of the party if possible. They all endeavored to make her forget her grief, and one night we persuaded her to sleep in the house. This did more than anything else to break the ice, and before the party broke up she had entirely thrown off her abnormal condition. When the spring opened I began my touring and never failed to spend at least one night in the vacant house. Of course I always visited the owner. It was my object to make her the center figure of my dreams when sitting before the fire the night I had burglarized her house. In this I succeeded, though I was a long while about it At the end of a courtship she consented to be ifay wife. There was a wedding, and she and I are now occupying the house together. The place is singularly pleasing to me, remembering how I came to occupy it permanently, and I think that nature has kindly obliterated from my wife the sadness that once attached to it. This has largely been accomplished by the advent of children.