"
"Thar was a while once we had a powerful clever talker up hyeh," the
Kentuckian answered, "actin' as schoolmaster for a few weeks. I reckon
he'd offered to substitute jes' to get a chance to see for himself what
life in the mount'ns was like. He was writin' a book about it. We got
right frien'ly, an' he knew he was always welcome hyeh, an' one day I
asked him jes' that question. It was shortly befo' he lef' an' I wanted
to know what he thought about us all up hyeh."
The mountaineer leaned back in his chair and chuckled with evident
enjoyment of the recollection.
"I jes' put the question to him," he said, "in the mildes' way, an' he
started right in to talk. Thar was no stoppin' him, an' I couldn'
remember one-half o' what he said. But I reckon he had it about right."
"How did he explain the feuds, Uncle Eli?" asked the boy.
"Wa'al," said the mountaineer, with a short laugh, "he begun by sayin'
we were savages."
"Savages?"
"Not jes' with war-paint an' tomahawk, yo' understan'," continued the
old man, enjoying the boy's astonishment, "but uncivilized an' wild.
Thar an't any finer stock in the world, he said, than the mount'neers o'
the Ridge, clar down to Tennessee, an' he said, too, that they were o'
the good old English breed, not foreigners like are comin' in now.
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