The Farmington times and herald. (Farmington, St. Francois Co., Mo.) 1902-1905, 1905-04-14

~, m -ETOE OF A somebody snbBesI'
DEAR FRIEND ed that We hold an.
other circle Immediately to see II the
spirit would tell us something OF him
self That night we met, But We pre-
ylously bored hole through the wall
and put piece Of garden hose through.
At each end Of the hose we placed
| funnel. and at the end of II In another
room we stationed one OF our men. we
| had little grudge against the news
paper correspondent Of the town, ann
wo told him that We were having an In
! tcresting time at our spiritualistic meet
! ings and invited him to join that night,
lie grabbed at the chance and was bad
! ~ excited when we got to the room.
! That day one OF the boys had borrowed
a skeleton from a doctor and carried II
| to an old straw stack about mile from
| town and buried It In an old pine box.
We held the circle and soon got the
| spirit on the line. All Of us asked ques-
! tOns IN rather loud voice, and which
were easily overheard by our man In the
next room He Immediately answered
/ through the garden hose telephone and
| his voice sounded so unearthly that Il
made little chills run up and down our
! backs The spirit told US he had been
murdered years before, and his body
buried IN the old straw stack 1t said 1t
| recognized old man Brown as a former
very dear friend but knew none OF the
others Well. sir old Brown was just
hopping He wanted TO hike out right
away for the old s.rAw stack aud the
newspaper correspondent was Just as
bad We got a lot OF lanterns and
started We took the worst road we
could find and by the time We got ther"
all were pretty muddy Then we found
that We had left town without spade to
dig with The correspondent walked
that long muddy mile back to town for
the spade and he certainly made rec.
ord time When he at last reappeared
We voted 10 let him do the digging He
dug over the whole territory before he
NJ last located the skeleton Dragging
It out he looked at the innocent old
thing and says Boys I've got a beat
l''U nay N'll W = AlAbulu'ItN lldl
old skeleton and wadcd back to town
II was placed IN the window of an un-
herlakor's shop and people came from
all over the country ~ see the remains
If tho victim of horrible murder The
papers from one end OF the country To
M" other we're fun of II
we let It run along about a week.
and then let up was sending out
little stun To newspapers once IN awhile
myself and / wrote mp the hoax And
all the papers printed that None OF
the papers reached here then except
what ! received. and | kept them hid
den so old man Brown would not see
them W" were wondering how to put
him on when one Of the boys saw him
coming mp the street Grasping that
little gutta perCha skeleton, he walked
down the street swinging II between his
fingers The old man saw IT, and turned
white He can~ mp to where we were
and | handed him a paper with the
whole thiug .u H. He read the article
through and then turned around and
looked AT each OF rs individually and
collectively He walked away and
never spoke 10 one Of us again
Where is he now Down In the
Lexington asylum. where he ought to
have been a long time before KANSAS
CITY star