The Stories of the Three Burglars

Stories of the Three Burglars,
The

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Title: The Stories of the Three Burglars
Author: Frank Richard Stockton
Release Date: February 5, 2004 [EBook #10948]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Frank R. Stockton]
The Stories of the Three Burglars
By FRANK R. STOCKTON
1889

THE STORIES OF THE THREE BURGLARS.

I am a householder in a pleasant country neighbourhood, about twenty
miles from New York. My family consists of myself and wife, our boy,
George William, aged two, two maid-servants, and a man; but in the
summer we have frequent visitors, and at the time of which I am about
to write my Aunt Martha was staying with us.
My house is large and pleasant, and we have neighbours near enough
for social purposes and yet not too near or too many to detract from the
rural aspect of our surroundings. But we do not live in a paradise; we
are occasionally troubled by mosquitoes and burglars.
Against the first of these annoyances we have always been able to
guard ourselves, at least in a measure, and our man and the cook
declare that they have become so used to them that they do not mind
them; but to guard against burglars is much more difficult, and to
become used to them would, I think, require a great deal of practice.
For several months before the period of this narrative our
neighbourhood had been subject to visits from burglars. From time to
time houses had been entered and robbed, and the offenders had never
been detected.
We had no police force, not even a village organization. There was a
small railway station near our house, and six miles away was the
county town. For fire and police protection each household was obliged
to depend upon itself.
Before the beginning of the burglarious enterprises in our midst, we
had not felt the need of much protection in this direction; sometimes
poultry was stolen, but this was a rare occurrence, and, although
windows and doors were generally fastened for the night, this labour
was often considered much more troublesome than necessary. But now
a great change had taken place in the feelings of our community. When
the first robbery occurred the neighbours were inclined to laugh about it,
and to say that Captain Hubbard's habit of sitting up after the rest of his
family had gone to bed and then retiring and forgetting to close the
front door had invited the entrance of a passing tramp. But when a
second and a third house, where windows and doors had not been left
open, had been entered, and, in a measure, despoiled, people ceased to
laugh; and if there had been any merriment at all on the subject, it
would have been caused by the extraordinary and remarkable
precautions taken against the entrance of thieves by night. The loaded

pistol became the favourite companion of the head of the house; those
who had no watch-dogs bought them; there were new locks, new bolts,
new fastenings. At one time there was a mounted patrol of young men,
which, however, was soon broken up by their mothers. But this trouble
was unavailing, for at intervals the burglaries continued.
As a matter of course a great many theories were broached as to the
reasons for this disturbance in our hitherto peaceful neighbourhood. We
were at such a distance from the ordinary centres of crime that it was
generally considered that professional burglars would hardly take the
trouble to get to us or to get away from us, and that, therefore, the
offences were probably committed by unsuspected persons living in
this part of the country who had easy means of determining which
houses were worth breaking into and what method of entrance would
be most feasible. In this way some families, hitherto regarded as
respectable families, had fallen under suspicion.
So far, mine was the only house of any importance within the distance
of a mile from the station which had not in some way suffered from
burglars. In one or two of these cases the offenders had been frightened
away before they had done any other injury than the breaking of a
window-shutter; but we had been spared any visitation whatever. After
a time we began to consider that