"He? Oh, yes," the mountaineer replied, "word for word, syllable for syllable—that is, fo' to-day."
"He must have a good memory," the boy exclaimed "I'm sure I couldn't."
"But he'll forget every word by to-morrow," the other continued, "almost forget that he was hyeh to-day at all. That's why they're so hard to teach, those po' whites, what they learn doesn't stick. I heard him tellin' yo' about the disappearance o' the last teacheh."
"Yes, he was putting it down to 'cunjering.' Is there much of that sort of idea in the mountains?"
"None among the mount'neers proper," replied the old man. "Some o' the po' whites down in the gullies talk about it, but thar's mo' difference between the folks in the gullies an' on the Ridge th'n there is between the mount'ns an' the Blue Grass. They are different, an' they look different, too."
"Bill Wilsh certainly does," agreed Hamilton, "but I thought at first it was because he was tired out with a long walk after a day's work."
The Kentuckian shook his head.
"They're all that way," he said. "They jes' look all beaten out as if they hadn't any life left in them at all. I reckon the most o' them have hookworm, too, an' they just look fit to drop."
"Hookworm, Uncle Eli? What is that?" asked the boy.
"It's a queer kind o' disease," the old man answered, "that comes from goin' barefoot. There's a kind o' grub in the soil, and it works its way in. It's only jes' recently that it's be'n found out that the po' whites are peaked and backward because they're sick, and now they know a cure fo' it, why hookworm is being driven right out o' the South."