At the side of the garden was the family burying ground, where the
gravestones were laid flat on masonry, bringing them about three feet
from the ground. These stones were large, flat slabs of marble, and I
used to climb up on top and sit or lie down, and trace the letters or figures
with my fingers. I visited this graveyard in 1903. The eight graves
were there in a good state of preservation, with not a slab broken,
although my grandfather was buried there, ninety years ago. My father
had a stone wall built around these graves for protection, when he left
Kentucky. I am glad that family graveyards have given place to public
cemeteries, for this place has changed hands many times and this graveyard
is not pleasant for the strangers who live there. We who are
interested in these sacred mounds, feel like we intrude, to have the homes
of our dead with strangers.

{illust. caption =
MY OLD HOME WHERE I WAS BORN IN GARRARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY.
THE OLD GRAVE YARD NEAR BY, AND MY GRANDFATHER's GRAVE.}


The memories of this Kentucky home date from the time I was
three years old. This seems remarkable, but my mother said this
incident occurred when I was three years old, and I remember it distinctly.
I was standing in the back yard, near the porch. Mr. Brown,
the overseer, was in the door of my half-brother Richard's room,
with my brother's gun in his hands. At the end of the porch was a
small room, called the "saddle room." A pane of glass was out of the
window and a hen flew out, cackling. Aunt Judy, the colored woman,
went in to get the egg, and walked in front of Mr. Brown, who raised
the gun and said: "Judy, I am going to shoot you," not thinking the
gun was loaded. It went off, and aunt Judy fell. Mr. Brown began to