between the driver's
back-yard, and that of the laborer. Then the small man climbed to the
top of the fence, balanced himself carefully, hauled the ladder up and
slid it down in the Dutchman's lot. All this was suspicious, but what
the driver wanted was positive proof, so he choked his dog and remained
quiet until the man had milked the cow and started for the fence. Now
the bull-dog, being freed from his master's grasp, coupled into the
climber's caboose and hauled him back down the ladder. It was found upon
examination that a rubber hot-water bag, well filled with warm milk, was
dangling from a strap that encircled the man's shoulders, shot-pouch
fashion.

Upon being charged, the man pleaded guilty. At first, he said, he had
only taken enough milk for the baby, who had been without milk for
thirty-six hours. The thought of stealing had not entered his mind until
near morning of the second night of the baby's fast. They had been up
with the starving child all night, and just before day he had gone into
the back-yard to get some fuel to build a fire, when he heard his
neighbor's cow tramping about in the barn lot, and instantly it
occurred to him that there was milk for the baby; that if he could
procure only a teacupful, it might save the child's life. He secured a
ladder and went over the fence, but being dreadfully afraid he had taken
barely enough milk to keep the baby during the day and that night they
were obliged to walk the floor again. It was only a little past midnight
when he went over the fence for the second time. Upon this occasion he
took more milk, so that he was not obliged to return on the following
night, but another day brought the same condition of affairs and over
the fence he went, and he continued to go every night, and the baby
began to thrive as it had not done in all its life.

Finally the food supply began to dwindle, he was idle, and his wife was
unable to do hard work; they had other small children who now began to
cry for milk, and the father's heart ached for them and he went over the
fence one night prepared to bring all he could get. That day all the
children had milk, but it was soon gone and then came the friendly night
and the performance at the back fence was repeated.

Emboldened by success the man had come to regard it as a part of his
daily or nightly duty to milk his neighbor's cow, but alas! for the
wrong-doer there comes a day of reckoning, and it had come at last to
the f