One Very Scary Night

One day, when I was about thirteen, possibly about 1945, we had all been in Burley and arrived home around dark.  At bedtime, I went upstairs to bed, I slept in the south bedroom.

I had been laying there for some time, when I heard someone moving in the East bedroom.  I knew that there was no one sleeping in that room. There were some doors that opened up into storage areas back in the eaves.  I became more than just a little nervous, especially when I heard footsteps coming down the hall.  It was a bright moonlight night.  I reached down very carefully and picked up a shoe, then I lay very still and watched.  I saw two figures go by my door and start down the stairs.  My heart was beating so hard, that I could hear it pounding in my head.  I was sure that whoever was going down the stairs could hear it also.  I heard the clock in the kitchen strike eleven.  I counted the stairs as they went down, the perspiration was rolling off of my body and face.  I had never been so terrified in all my life.  I heard the clock in the kitchen strike twelve. 

There were no electric lights to turn on and if there had been, who knows what would have happened.  I heard the squeaky stair at the bottom, the clock struck the half hour, I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open.  According to my calculations it took an hour and a half for them to go down the stairs.  I still lay there very quietly for what seemed almost a complete eternity, then got out of bed, closed my door very quietly and
locked it. 

Needless to say I didn't sleep much the rest of the night.  When morning came and it got light enough to see a little, I went down stairs and woke up Dad and Mother.  When I told them of the happenings of the night, Dad got out of bed, took his rifle and went looking in the basement.  We never found anything to be missing.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep well for a long time after that.

Later on we found out the rest of the story was.  Two men had escaped from the Cassia County jail in Burley, Idaho.  The Sheriff had followed them to Moulton and the Utah line.  Then, Sheriff Warren Hyde, the Box Elder County Sheriff, took up the search.  He followed them for several days before he caught them.  After he caught them, they told about coming to our place, the doors were not locked so they went in and hid until after dark and then left.  To write about this sixty-five years later still raises goose pimples and makes cold chills run up and down my back.