A CALIFORNIAN TRAGEDY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9074, 14 February 1908, Page 7

A CALIFORNIAN TRAGEDY.

Little Robert Hyde Summers, the five-year-old son of Mr and Mrs Robert O. Summers, of 1019 Sher- ■' man street, San' Jose, Oal., believed in Santa Olaus, So he got;dut of bed in the middle of the night and crept to the place where, as his parents had told him, Santa would leave the presents. Mr and Mrs Summers awoke"" and heard somebody in their room.gThey believed it was a burglar. They saw in the darkness a crouching form at the spot where they had left the little one’s Christmas gifts. They whispered that a thief was in the room. The father of the child drew his revolver from under the pillow. The mother of the child told him to shoot. Mr Summers fired. The form that had seemed to be crouching fell to the floor. Jumping out of the bed and lighting the gas, Mr Summers found—not the body of a dead burglar, but the form of his own little son, lying lifeless among the toys that Santa Olaus had brought for him. The father’s aim had been good. The shot had passed close to the heart.