Some people are afraid of burglars. Girls are awfully afraid of them. When they think there\'s a burglar in the house, they pull the clothes over their heads and scream "Murder father Jimmy there\'s a man in the house call the police fire!" just as if that would do any good. What you ought to do if there is a burglar is to get up and shoot him with a double-barrelled gun and then tie him and send the servant out to tell the police that if they will call after breakfast you will have something ready for them that will please them. I shouldn\'t be a bit frightened if I woke up and found a strange man in my room. I should just pretend that I was asleep and keep watching him and when he went to climb out of the window and got half way out I\'d jump up and shut the window down on him and tie his legs. But you can\'t expect girls to have any courage, or to know what to do when anything happens.

We had been talking about burglars one day last week just before I went to bed, and I thought I would put my bownarrow where it would be handy if a robber did come.[Pg 21] It is a nice strong bow, and I had about thirty arrows with sharp points in the end about half an inch long, that I made out of some big black pins that Susan had in her pin-cushion. My room is in the third story, just over Sue\'s room, and the window comes right down on the floor, so that you can lie on the floor and put your head out. I couldn\'t go to sleep that night very well, though I ate about a quart of chestnuts after I went to bed and I\'ve heard mother say that if you eat a little something delicate late at night it will make you go to sleep.

A long while after everybody had gone to bed I heard two men talking in a low tone under the window, and I jumped up to see what was the matter. Two dreadful ruffians were standing under Sue\'s window, and talking so low that it was a wonder I could hear anything.

One of them had something that looked like a tremendous big squash, with a long neck, and the other had something that looked like a short crowbar. It didn\'t take me long to understand what they were going to do. The man with the crowbar was intending to dig a hole in the foundation of the house and then the other man would put the big squash which was full of dynamighty in the hole and light a slow-match and run away and blow the house to pieces. So I thought the best thing would be to shoot them before they could do their dreadful work.
 

I got my bownarrow and laid down on the floor and took a good aim at one of the burglars. I hit him in the leg, and he said, "Ow! ow! I\'ve run a thorn mornamile into my leg."

Then I gave the other fellow an arrow, and he said, "My goodness this place is full of thorns, there\'s one in my leg too."

Then they moved back a little and I began to shoot as fast as ever I could. I hit them every time, and they were frightened to death. The fellow with the thing like a squash dropped it on the ground and the other fellow jumped on it just as I hit him in the cheek and smashed it all to pieces. You can just believe that they did not stay in our yard very long. They started for the front gate on a run, yelling "Ow! ow!" and I am sorry to say using the worst kind of swear-words. The noise woke up father and he lit the gas and I saw the two wretches in the street picking the arrows out of each other but they ran off as soon as they saw the light.

Father says that they were not burglars at all, but were only two idiots that had come to serenade Sue; but when I asked him what serenading was he said it was far worse than burglary, so I know the men were the worst kind of robbers. I found a broken guitar in the yard the next morning, and there wasn\'t anything in it that would explode,[Pg 23] but it would have been very easy for the robbers to have filled it with something that would have blown the house to atoms. I suppose they preferred to put it in a guitar so that if they met anybody nobody would suspect anything.

Neither mother nor Sue showed any gratitude to me for saving their lives, though father did say that for once that boy had showed a little sense.

When Mr. Travers came that evening and I told him about it he said, "Jimmy! there\'s such a thing as being just a little too smart."

I don\'t know what he meant, but I suppose he was a little cross, for he had hurt himself some way—he wouldn\'t tell me how—and had court-plaster on his cheek and on his hands and walked as if his legs were stiff. Still, if a man doesn\'t feel well he needn\'t be rude.