Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1874 — The Little Thief. [ARTICLE]

The Little Thief.

In nothing do we so show our want of self-control as in our disposition to charge others with fault because we have no other explanation for mysterious occurrences. We conclude that others are untruthful when no solution but this presents itself. We lose valuables, and at once think they are stolen. The charity that “hopeth all things” is a rare virtue. Some years ago I performed a wedding service, and received a fee of fifty dollars. It was a soft note placed inside a small, delicate envelope. I returned home in the evening, and laid the envelope containing the note upon the bureau of my bed-room. No one was in the room but my wife and one servant, who had been with us for years, and was implicitly trusted. In arranging the room she took up the note and asked about the wedding. Making some playful remark about the fee she laid it down again on the bureau. In a few moments she went to her own room, and we saw her nd more again that night. The other servant was in the kitchen. She did not, to our knowledge, enter our room at all. The children were in the adjoining chamber asleep. Two friends, who were visiting us, were in another part of the' house. Turning down the light, and closing the door, we left our room for an hour’s chat with our guests. When we returned, the note could not be found. It was certainly there when we left. Nothing else had been disturbed, but the note was gone. Thorough search was made for it; everything in the bureau was carefully examined. The floor was swept, the clothing shaken out. The closest scrutiny revealed nothing. Nearly an hour was spent in the search, but all in vain. The girls had long since retired; the children had not awakened; save the friends in whose company we had been, no one else was in the house. No one could have entered it without our knowledge. Here was a mystery; what could have become of the note? It could not have made away with itself. Such a suicide was impossible. Could one of the girls have slipped into the room during our absence and stolen it? We were too sure of their honesty to entertain the thought. But there was the stick—how else could it have disappeared? With uneasy thoughts we gave it up for the night. > The next morning the search was renewed, Every part of the room and everything in it was carefully examined, with the same result as before. We questioned the girls and the children. They affirmed positively that they had hot been in the room or seen the rrote. The loss was nothing-compared with the mystery. Nota word of suspicion was expressed, though it was hard to refrain from thoughts. Down stairs we found the girls in great distress. Though unaccused, they felt that circumstances pointed to them as the guilty ones. We assured them that we had all confidence in their integrity, and concluded to await revelations. Later in the day I determined to solve the mystery if possible. I shut myself in the room and went at it*with the precision of an experienced detective. I found at length a small cutting at the base of the chimney fire-board. Removing the board I discovered a mouse hole between the brick floor and the wall. I then got a chisel and pried up the brick, and lo! underneath it was the envelope with the note inside. The gum was eaten ofl, the envelope crumpled up, but the note was intact! The story was now plain enough. During our absence from the room the mouse had come out seeking what he might devour—had climbed up the lace curtains beside the bureau, attracted by seed th the bird-cage above; had jumped on the bureau, found the gummed envelope, and had dragged it down the curtain to the floor, through the opening in the fire-board to his nest under the bricks, for a future meal. I called in the family and explained the circumstances, to their great relief. 7 . ■ - Now how strong the facts were against the girls! Hpw natural to have called in a policeman and have them arrested, and their characters gone ever afterward,

and we ourselves made: unhappy and doubly suspicious in all the future. My little mouse prehched me a good sermon, and the text was: “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”— Church Record.