Hoosier John, as he was called, was a curious specimen of humanity. He was one of those waifs, so to speak, often found floating around the frontier, that like Melchisedec, would seem to have had neither father or mother. He had arms of great length, feet of immense size, and a head soggy enough for a supervisor; he was also slow of speech and movement, except upon the occasion referred to, when his movements were quick enough.

Some of the boys had given him thirty-six grains of calomel, as the Irishman would say, "unbeknownst to him," one-half of which would have killed any common man, the operation of which created quite a sensation in his immediate vicinity. The joke of it was in his not knowing that he had taken anything, and that, when asked what ws the matter, replied that he had the overflow of the gall. Well, I think he had, and a bad one. He left in the Spring of '38, the country having got too thickly settled for him.

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