season was dull and except on county court day he
could spare the girl for an hour or two almost any afternoon. He also
asked if my father still had on hand that half barrel of Old Mock. The
next afternoon when I went for the girl I brought the Judge a gallon jug
of Dad's Old Mock, telling the folks I was taking him some cider.

When we returned, we found the boy asleep in the springhouse, but within
five minutes of our arrival he sat up and went through the regular
program. After he had talked for some time, he laid down and resumed his
quiet slumber.

This program was repeated the next day except the girl brought out a
slate and succeeded in making the boy write or draw upon it characters
which were strange to us, and which he wrote from right to left with
great ease, though he could not write his name.

The writings on the slate the stenographer carefully copied and after
transcribing her notes gave me the copies, one of which I sent to
Professor Fales, who forwarded it to his learned friend at Covington. He
not only wrote but telegraphed for more.

Twice again the boy's words were taken down and twice he wrote again
upon the slate. We might with patience and quiet have gotten a complete
history of a generation of prehistoric people, but my mother, who still
looked upon me as a young boy incapable of caring for himself in the
company of a designing female person, and having noted our regular
visits to the springhouse, rushed down unannounced with the boy's
mother.

The two made such a racket when they came in they awoke the boy, who
dropped the slate. He never again came to the springhouse to sleep; and
though afterwards I sat many hours by his bedside in the cabin, he never
again uttered a strange or unusual sound until just before his death,
which occurred in the fall.

In the early fall his father and mother visited a negro family who had a
child ill with scarlet fever. Within two weeks their own boy was taken
with the same illness and a few days thereafter died. Shortly before his
death I went into the cabin and found him raving in the strange tongue.
He had been born on the place. I felt too sad to be curious or to go for
the stenographer, but I remember very distinctly the sounds of the last
few words he uttered, which were twice repeated. These I wrote down and
sent away. I found the translation of the words was; "After a brief bird
life I shall find Nirvana."

In a talk with his mother, which occurre