'What's your name?'
I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed himself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command followed.
'Where was you born?'
'In Florida, Missouri.'
A pause. Then—
'Dern sight better staid there!'
By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my family history out of me.
The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed—