There was one family, however, where there were several children, all of whom loved him very much. Each one of them learned to use finger signs and were never so proud as when they would carry on some sort of conversation with the great scholar. He was deeply touched by the friendship of these children, and although he could not hear them as they practised on the piano, he could feel the vibration by placing his fingers on the soundingboard and in that way marked their progress in music. John Kitto married and had children of his own, whom he loved dearly, although he never heard them speak. In spite of the great value of his books his income was never very large at any time. In 1850 he was granted a civic pension of five hundred pounds a year. In those days that was considered a good income and no doubt it did much to lift the burden of anxiety from his mind. There certainly was no mistaking the high regard which was felt for him everywhere. Although a layman he was granted the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the University of Giessen in 1845. He was also made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries the same year. In 1851 his health began to fail and some time later he went to Germany to try the mineral waters there. He did not obtain the desired benefit, however, and he died at Cannstadt in 1854, having reached the age of fifty. His passing was greatly mourned in England, for the boy from Plymouth workhouse, living for nearly forty years under a terrible handicap, had found a place of very great usefulness in the world. CHAPTER V. THE SLAVE BOY WHO BECAME A GREAT LEADER. Some time about the year 1858 or 1859 a negro child was born in a log cabin in Virginia, U.S.A. The parents of the child were slaves, and utterly without education. When the child grew to be a man he could never find out the exact date, or even the year of his birth. The first things he remembered were the scenes around the squalid, little log cabin, where his earliest years were spent. The cabin itself was sixteen feet by fourteen. It not only had to serve as the sole home for the family, but was used as the kitchen for the plantation. There were no windows in it, only openings in the side which let in the light. The same openings, of course, let in the chilly air in winter. A broken-down door hung on uncertain hinges. In one corner of the miserable cabin there was a "cat hole"--a hole about seven or eight inches square--to enable the family cat to pass in or out. As there were half a dozen other holes in the cabin walls, this contrivance seemed unnecessary. There was no wooden floor to the cabin, the bare earth being considered all that was necessary. In the centre of the floor there was a large, deep hole which was used to store sweet potatoes during the winter. There was no stove in the cabin, all the cooking being done over an open fireplace.