The father studied his son's suddenly animated eyes and inquired drily, "Does this book-l'arnin' teach ye ter lay around plumb ind'lent with times so slavish hard thet I've been pintedly compelled ter start ther still workin' ergin, despite my a-bein' a Christian an' a law-lover: despite my seekin' godliness an' abhorin' iniquity?"
There was in the sober expression of the questioner no cast of hypocrisy or conscious anomaly, and the younger man shook his head.
"I hain't never shirked no labor, neither in ther field ner at ther still, but——" He paused a moment and once more the rebellious light flared in his eyes and he continued with the level steadiness of resolution. "But I hates ter foller thet business, an' when I comes of age I aims ter quit hit."
"Ye aims ter quit hit, does ye?" The old mountaineer forgot, in the sudden leaping of wrath at such unfilial utterances, that he himself had a few minutes before spoken in the same tenor. "Ye aims ter defy me, does ye? Wa'al even afore ye comes of age hit wouldn't hardly hurt ye none ter quit drinkin' hit. Ye're too everlastin' good ter make blockade licker, but ye hain't none too good ter lay drunk up thar with hit."
This time the boy's flush was one of genuine chagrin and he bit off the instinctive retort that perhaps a realization of this overpowering thirst was the precise thing which haunted him: the exact urge which made him want to break away from a serfdom that held him always chained to his temptation.
"Ye thinks ye're too much like Abe Lincoln ter make blockade licker," went on the angry parent, "but ye hain't above rampagin' about these hills seekin' trouble an' raisin' up enemies whar I've done spent my days aimin' ter consort peaceable with my neighbors. Hit hain't been but a week since ye broke Ratler Webb's nose."
"Hit come about in fair fight—fist an' skull, an' I only hit him oncet."
"Nobody else didn't feel compelled ter hit him even oncet, did they?"
"Mebby not—but he was seekin' ter bulldoze me an' he hurt my feelin's. I'd done laughed hit off twic't."
"An' so ye're a-goin' on a-layin' up trouble erginst ther future. Hit hain't ther makin' of licker thet's laid a curse on these hills. Hit's drinkin' hit. Ef a man kin walk abroad nowadays without totin' his rifle-gun an' a-dreadin' ther shot from the la'rel, hit's because men like me hev sought day an' night ter bring about peace. I counseled a truce in ther Stacy-Towers war because I war a Christian an' I didn't 'low thet God favored bloodshed. But ther truce won't hardly last ef ye goes about stirrin' up ructions.