The daughter said that they had gone to
bed at dark the night her father was robbed. She slept up stairs, and he
down below. About ten o'clock she heard him scream, and running down
stairs, she found him sitting up in bed, and the window wide open. He
said a man had sprung in upon him, stuffed the bedclothes into his
mouth, and dragging his box from under the bed, had made off with it.
She ran to the door and looked out, but there was no one to be seen. It
was dark, and snowing a little, so no traces of footsteps were to be
perceived in the morning.
"Father found that the neighbors were dropping in to bear the old man
company, so he drove on to Sudbury, and then returned home. When he got
back, he said Jacobs was hanging about the stable in a nervous kind of a
way, and said he wanted to speak to him. Father said very good, but put
the horse in first. Jacobs unhitched, and father sat on one of the
stable benches and watched him till he came lounging along with a straw
in his mouth, and said he'd made up his mind to go West, and he'd like
to set off at once.
"Father said again, very good, but first he had a little account to
settle with him, and he took out of his pocket a paper, where he had
jotted down, as far as he could, every quart of oats, and every bag of
grain, and every quarter of a dollar of market money that Jacobs had
defrauded him of.
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