Father had four or five hundred dollars, which were mostly silver, he
thought this would be more secure and unsuspected in mother's willow
basket, which would be thought to contain only wearing apparel for the
child. We had just got nicely installed and father gone to make
preparations for our embarkation on the "Michigan," when the lady of
the house came by mother and, as if to move it a little, lifted her
basket. Then she said, "You must have plenty of money, your basket is
very heavy."

When father came, and mother told him the liberty the lady had taken, he
did not like it much, and I am sure I felt anything but easy.

But father called for a sleeping room with three beds, and we were shown
up three flights of stairs, into a dark, dismal room, with no window,
and but one door. Mother saw us children in bed, put the basket of silver
between my little brother and me, and then went down. The time seemed
long, but finally father and mother came up. I felt much safer then. Late
in the evening a man, with a candle in one hand, came into the room,
looked at each bed sufficiently to see who was in it. When he came to
father's bed, which proved to be the last, as he went round, father asked
him what he wanted there. He said he was looking for an umbrella. Father
said he would give him umbrella, caught him by the sleeve of his coat;
but he proved to be stronger than his coat for he fled leaving one sleeve
of a nice broadcloth coat in father's hand. Father then put his knife
over the door-latch. I began to breathe more freely, but there was no
sleep for father or mother, and but little for me, that night.

Everything had been quiet about two hours when we heard steps, as of two
or three, coming very quietly, in their stocking feet. Father rose, armed