Show fow SK adventurers AD CLUB j HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES B OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU R S E L F Fl I 1 I 1 the madman aladean with the bottle H TJ ELLO EVERYBODY 1 you know they say troubles never come singly which is just another way of saying that old lady adventure is never content with giving you just one sock on the jaw I 1 dont know how true that is but it certainly worked out that way in the case of hattie rohr of chicago batties Hat ties big bout with old lady adventure came in the winter of 1917 there was trouble enough in the world then without having the old girl with the thrill bag on your neck the war was on and the influenza epidemic was sweeping the country hattie in those days was justan eleven year old girl living with her mother and dad and three sisters on a farm between clare and dodge city iowa her name then was hattie i mclaughlin the flu epidemic struck the mclaughlin family in january it brought down batties Hat ties dad and her three sisters and that left hattie and her mother to do all the chores around that big farm it was one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong mother had just come from upstairs to call the doctor dad and the three sick girls were worse while they were waiting for the doctor the party line phone rang it was the school teacher down with the flu herself who wanted hattie to go to the schoolhouse and post a notice saying there would be no school that day already tired from her mornings work hattie struggled more than a mile through the snow to post that notice she found two small children shivering in the cold waiting for the school to open and took them to her home and phoned their father to come and get them and no sooner had he come and gone with his pair of kids than hattie heard another knock on the door stranger comes in for tea A strange man was out front he said said he was a telephone lineman from clare and wanted to know if he could come in and get warm hattie and her mother asked him in and gave him a cup of tea to warm him up while he was drinking his tea and eating a piece of corn 1 45 law dashe she was out of her chair and darting across the room reaching out quickly she grabbed the knife bread hattie and her mother went on with their work nothing unusual happened until he had finished eating and drinking then the stranger got up and walked over to the stove it was such an unusual movement that hattie stopped to watch him he backed up against the stove as if to warm himself but hattie saw one of his hands slide into his pocket and come out holding a tiny bottle there was a pot of beans boiling on the stove slowly shielded by his body the strangers hand crept up and emptied the contents of the bottle into the pot of beans her mother hadad seen it but hattie was standing in such a position that she could see every move he made she was startled frightened an older person might have said nothing for fear of precipitating trouble that mother and child were defenseless with dad ill in bed upstairs but kids of batties Hat ties age dont stop to think of those things she let out a scream and then impulsively she darted across the room and knocked the bottle from the mans hand out comes a long thin bladed knife her mother turned to see what was the matter at the same time the stranger reached inside his coat pulled bulled out a long thin bladed knife and slashed hattie across the legs blood began to flow from a long deep cut dazed at the turn affairs had taken hattie backed away staring at the man the man stood knife in hand staring back at hattie her mother was staring at both of them for a minute there was a deathly silence the man made no other move said nothing hattie and her mother were too frightened to speak they began to realize the fellow was stark mad hattie sat down took off a stocking and tied it about her wound the man stood looking first at her then at her mother he waited until she was finished tying up her bleeding leg and then he walked across the room to where her mother was standing breathless and paralyzed with fright AND RAISED THE KNIFE and again hattie acted impulsively in an instant she was out of her chair and darting across the room reaching out quickly she rhe grabbed the knifel the man gave the knife a quick pull it came out of batties Hat ties hand band cutting it clear to the bone at the base of the thumb crying out in pain she grabbed at her wrist with her other hand the madman shoved her away and knocked her mother down for another moment hattie stood dazed the man fell on her mother sat ocher chest and began choking her and at last a sudden change ca came m e over hattie before she had been frightened trembling now she became furious A red mist seemed to drop before her eyes she grabbed up a piece of wood from the pile beside the stove raised it over her head and brought it down as hard as she could on the mad mans head the man rolled over and lay still batties Hat ties wrist was still bleeding and her mother tied it up tightly to stop the flow they got ropes and tied the maniacs hands behind his back and then well then hattie keeled over in a dead faint when she came to the doctor had been to the house he had sewed up batties Hat ties wounds and she had never known a thing about it the dot doctor also took the madman back to town and turned him over to the police they found out later that he had escaped from an institution down in the south where he had been put for murder and when they analyzed that pot of beans into which he had emptied that bottle it was found that they were poisoned released by western newspaper union |