Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight

by Mathew Joseph Holt

He suggested that I find out from the boy's mother where she or her people were from; get a stenographer at Winchester to come out and make careful notes of his murmurings; and when made send a copy to him and one to——, a lawyer at Covington, who was an antiquarian and an Egyptologist.

The next day after the receipt of the letter I went to Winchester and inquired at the court-house for the official stenographer. I learned, as all courts in the district were adjourned for the summer, he had gone to Atlantic City for the month. So I went to Judge Buckner's office and borrowed his stenographer.

The Judge said the 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 occurred some time before his death, she stated that it was a rare thing he ever talked in his sleep and then only used the most common expressions.