Children were easy to raise, an' a
population grew up in a hurry, but the land was too poor for good
farmin', the roads were too bad for takin' corn to market, an' thar was
no way o' gettin' to a town."
"You are pretty well cut off," said Hamilton.
"We were more so then," the mountaineer said. "An' so, while all the
country 'round was advancin' up in the mount'ns, fifty years ago, we
were livin' jes' like pioneers. An' some, not bein' able to keep up the
strain, fell back."
"So it really isn't the fault of the mountaineers at all," cried the
boy, "but because they were sort of marooned."
"It was unfortunate," replied the old man, "but it really was our own
fault. If the mount'n country was worth developin', we should have
developed it; if not, we should have left."
"I've often wondered why you didn't, Uncle Eli," said Hamilton.
"Yo' must remember," the Kentuckian said, "that the mount'neers are a
most independent lot. They want to be independent, an' up hyeh, every
man is his own master. But, thar bein' no available market if they did
work hard, what was the use o' workin'? Some o' them, 'specially down in
the gullies, got lazy an' shif'less.
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