Show FAMOUS HEADLINE EADLINE HU HUNTER T R r r L The Hat on the tte Floor t I IBy 1 By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter I BEATRICE EATRICE JOHNSON of Brooklyn N. N Y has a doggone good t criticism to make of Old Man Webster the bird who wrote the dictionary She says that when he defined the word fear fear he didn't half do the job ill And to illustrate her point she tells a story of a big night at the Johnson home when the whole darned family got the scare of their lives Jives Beatrice is fifteen now but she was only ten at the time of her adventure Then she lived on Rockaway avenue out in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn with her mother three little brothers and an older sister I. I Her father a veteran of a colored regiment in the World war had died some years before The Johnsons lived on the top floor of a tenement one of or a long row of buildings all alike and all joined together Mama Johnson Believes in Playing Hunches The door of their apartment led from the hall straight into the kitchen and that door was a flimsy thing with a large pane of glass in inthe m the upper panel It wasn't much of a protection and the Johnsons who bad had no man in the house to take care of them well them well it sort of got on their nerves a little a One spring Saturday night in 1930 it got on Mama Iama Johnsons Johnson's J j nerves just enough so that she stayed home with her family instead of going to a party to which she had been invited Ma Ia I Johnson still cant can't explain why she stayed home that night She just had a hunch that something was going to happen And sure 1 did enough something enough something It was a hot night and the whole family had gone to bed Beatrices Beatrice's s skid kid kid brothers were snoring away in the next room and her older sister just recovering from an operation was asleep too Beatrice Batrice was just justI I about to drop off when suddenly she was awakened by a loud crash crash- the sound of shattering glass Beatrice Investigates the Cause of the Crash Beatrice sat up in bed her heart beating rapidly That crash had come come from the kitchen It could mean only one thing Some one was breaking into the house I Her throat was dry and her whole body was shaking Mechanically she picked up a bathrobe and jumped out of bed bcd To get to her mothers mother's room she had to pass through the kitchen Would the intruder be there She put her band on the knob door and turned it slowly slowly quietly The knob turned all right but when she started to swing the door open it creaked loudly Beatrice went weak all over from fright For a second I stood there unable to move she says I tried to pray that the burglar would would spare our lives even though we had no money to give him To I I 1111 I r H I 1 7 r i ir V L I I I The Burglars Burglar's Hat La Lay on the Kitchen Floor this day I dont don't know what prompted my hand but I reached u up and turned on the light Then m my mother came rushing into o the kitchen L One glance told them that some one had been there The glass lass pane in in the kitchen door had been smashed to bits The burglars burglar's hat hata hat hat- fa a gray fedora lay in the center of the kitchen floor But the burglar himself was nowhere in sight Was he hiding somewhere about the house Neither Beatrice nor her mother dared to look The They Y were afraid they they'd d find him r Hatless Intruder Grins in Through Broken Door After that there was more confusion than the Johnson family had seen Pin in years Beatrice ran to the window Her mother woke up her brothers r and land sister Her little brothers were so scared that instead of getting dressed they undressed undressed took took off the underwear they ware were sleeping inand in inand land and stood naked in the middle of the kitchen floor boor Beatrice has laughed about that scene a hundred times since but she didn't then i I was scared stiff she says I couldn't have smiled for a hundred I dollars And then suddenly the thing happened Beatrices Beatrice's smallest brother raised a pointing finger and screamed There he is Beatrice looked up and sure enough there he was was was-a a short middle-aged middle Italian his head and torso framed in the opening that had once been the glass panel of the kitchen door lIe He was hatless his face pale his eyes bloodshot and he was grinning It was that weird terrifying grin that scared Beatrice more than anything else My knees came near giving way under me she says If I 1 ran to the window and screamed bloody murder The garage man Lacross across the street heard her and called to a cop who was just up the street Dago Red Was Cause of All the Trouble Meanwhile the little Italian had vanished t Ve tre e Johnson family pulled themselves together while the policeman and the garage man searched the house for the intruder They found him all right but when they arrested him for a burglar he was the most indignant nant guy you ever saw He wasn't a burglar he said No such thing And what was more he wanted his hat back Then the whole story came out The little Italian had been out for the evening and had taken a little too much red wine He lie got into the wrong house that house that wasn't hard bard to do because the whole doggone row of them looked alike and alike and when he had leaned against the Johnsons Johnson's door to steady himself the glass lass had broken cen and crashed to the floor His hat had fallen from his head landing on the kitchen floor and andI t that's ats at's what he had come back for when Beatrice saw him there grin grin- rung ning He was grinning he said because the Johnsons looked so funny particularly those three kid brothers standing in the middle of the floor I without a stitch of clothes on b Service |