Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1875 — A Woman’s Heroism and Presence of Mind. [ARTICLE]

A Woman’s Heroism and Presence of Mind.

The Worcester (Mass.) Qaeette of a recent date relates the following incident of heroism in a frail woman: • Yesterday afternoon a young lady was alone at her father’s residence in the northerly part of Ward Two, her father being out of town and her mother out for an afternoon drive. She has for several years been familiar with pistol practice, and to while away an hour she took her weapon to the garden and fired it several times, it not having been before discharged since last autumn. When she returned to the house she cleaned and reloaded the pistol and laid it on a table in a passage leading from the main hall of the house to the dining-room, after which she sat down in a sewing-room to her work. Soon after she heard a door shut and footsteps crossing the diningroom. Knowing that she was alone in the house she was alarmed, and started to see who had entered the house, when she was met at the door of the sewingroom by a burly and evil-looking tramp, apparently about forty years of age, of a stout, thick" build, with sandy, matted hair and beard, and wearing a black slouch hat pulled over his eyes, and dark, shabby clothing. As he approached her she accosted him with “ What do you want here?” to which he answered that he wanted something to eat. She replied: “If you want food it would be better to ring the bel or knock at the door than to come into a house in that way.” “ Well, if you don’t want me in here you had better keep your doors locked,” was the dogged answer. The lady then told him if he wanted food he should have it, she would go and get him something to eat; when he answered that he didn’t want anything to eat, he wanted money. She told him she had no money for him, but he could have all the food he needed, and she passed by him through the hall toward the dining-room, with the intent to get possession of her pistol. He again repeated hi 3 assertion that he wanted money, and she told him to stay where he was and she would bring him some food. He followed her, in sjJite of a second injunction to stay where he was, to the pantry beyond the dining-room. As she went through the passage she grasped the pistol without his observing it, and cocking it put it in her pocket. As he approached the pantry he said: “You’re all alone here, ain’t you?” She replied: “No, l am not!” when he said: “Yes, you are, I know all about it!” She took a plate of biscuit from the shelf and handed it toward him, telling him he could take as many as he Wanted, when he said: “I told you I didn’t want anything to eat, but I want them rings on your hand, and you’d better give them to me without making any noise or fuss!” stepping toward her with his “great, dirty hands,” as she describes them, stretched out to grasp her. She fell back, and drawing the cocked pistol from her pocket presented it full in his face, with a “Stand back!” “The devil!” ejaculated the rascal, no little disconcerted by the unexpected resistance. Seeing his demoralization the lady quickly said: “Yes, and you’ll see him pretty quick if you don’t get out of here! and you’d better not try your game in this neighborhood either, for all the women know how to use these things! You’d better get out as soan as possible.” The fellow retreated while she was speaking, and she kept him covered with thff weapon until he was outside the door, when she locked it, and as he went hastily down the street she sank to the floor, exhausted and faint with the strain of the encounter. In answer to a question why she did not shoot the scoundrel outright she said she did think of it, but her pistol carried only one cartridge, and she knew that if she fired and missed him she would be at his mercy and she saved her bullet as her last chance. She would have followed him on the street and caused his apprehension, but she was physically prostrated by excitement and it was impossible. She is a frail, delicate person, and those who know her most intimately only wonder that she had strength to drive the rascal from the house. The police were immediately notified of the occurrence and efforts were made to find him last evening, but without success-.