"Not altogether," the mountaineer agreed, "the real ol'-time feud is peterin' out, an' it's mainly due to the schoolin'. The young folks ain't ready fo' revenge now, an' that sort o' swings the women around. An' up hyeh in the mount'ns, same as everywhar else, I reckon, the idees o' the women make a pile o' difference."
"But I should have thought the women would always have been against the feuds," said Hamilton.
"Yo'd think so, but they weren't. They helped to keep up the grudges a whole lot."
"Aunt Ab hasn't changed much," volunteered the lad.
"She hasn't for a fact. Ab is powerful sot. She holds the grudge against the Howkles in the ol' style. But the feelin' is dyin' out fast, an' soon it'll be like history,—only jes' read of in books."
"What I never could see," remarked Hamilton, "was what started it all. It isn't as if the people in the mountains had come from some part of the world where vendettas and that sort of thing had been going on for generations. There must have been some kind of reason for it in this section of the country. Feuds don't spring up just for nothing."
"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.