The narrator’s grandfather is an old- timer of the Union army of the Civil War, which terminated about fifty-two years ago. His bedroom is in the attic. When the police come to the house to search for the burglar, the grandfather thinks that they are militaries who are abandoning because they are losing to the South. The grandfather calls them “cowardly dog” and “lily-livered cattle” and then fetches a policeman’s holster and shoots a man with his own gun.
The police retreat, terrified of the irrational old man but at the breakfast table the next morning, Grandfather seems impeccably conscious of the previous night’s situation, asking why so many police had been “tanyhootin” around the house. On the contrary, the narrator’s mother, Mrs Thurber is a highly excitable woman, scatter brained yet practical at times.
Hearing a sound in her house and suspecting a burglar, she thinks of the clever plan of alerting Mrs and Mr. Bodwell the neighbours by throwing a shoe through his closed window. After he goes to alert the police, she considers throwing the matching shoe, a thrill and fanciful act. She is surprised to hear that Grandfather has shot a policeman, not because of the courageous ferocity of the act, but because the cop was such a nice looking young man.
“Great powers don’t get angry Nor do they act in haste!”
