“Waal, thet’s the way it started, an’ it seemed as though it war never goin’ to end. Young Adam, he ’lowed as how no man could shoot his daddy an’ live, so he laid fer Jed as he was goin’ to the village, an’ shot him ’atween the eyes as neat as could be. Then the younger sons, thet were still not much more than boys, as you might say, they took to lyin’ in wait fer each other in the woods an’ behind fences. Pretty soon their relatives took to backin’ them up, and jined in on their own account. O’ course, most o’ the folks hereabouts is related to one another in some way.
“I wasn’t a native o’ these parts myself, an’ so managed to keep clear o’ the trouble. It was a hard thing for me to set by an’ see my neighbors killin’ each other off like a passel o’ mad dogs, though, an’ all the more because I knew there wasn’t any real call fer it in the first place.
“Howsumever, they’ve stopped fightin’ now, an’ it’s none too soon, nuther. Another year, an’ I reckon there wouldn’t a been a Berkeley or a Judson left alive in the hull State.”
The farmer stopped speaking, and gazed reflectively into the night.
“But what put an end to it finally,” inquired Bert, who had listened to this narrative with absorbed interest.
“Waal, there was considerable romance consarned in it, as you might say,” said his host. “Young Buck Judson, he met one o’ ole Berkeley’s daughters somewhere, an’ those two young fools hed to go an’ fall in love with each other. O’ course, their families were dead sot agin’ it, but nothin’ would do the critters short o’ gettin’ hitched up, an’ at last they talked their families into a peace meetin’, as you might say. All the neighbors was invited, an’ o’ course we-all went. An’, believe me, those people reminded me of a room full o’ tom cats, all wantin’ to start a shindy, but all hatin’ to be the fust to begin.
“But all we-’uns thet wanted to stop such goin’s on did our best to keep peace in the family. To make a long story short, everythin’ went off quiet an’ easy like, an’ Buck an’ his gal was hitched up all proper. The hard feelin’ gradually calmed down, an’ now the two families is tolerable good friends, considerin’ everything. But that cost a heap of more or less valable lives while it lasted, I can tell you.”
After a short pause, he continued, “But there was some turrible strong feelin’s on both sides while it lasted, son. Why, people was afraid to get ’atween a light an’ a winder, for fear of a bullet comin’ through and puttin’ a sudden an’ onpleasant end to them. Ole Sam Judson, as how always had a streak o’ yaller in him at the best o’ times, got so at last thet he wouldn’t stir out o’ the house without he toted his little gran’darter, Mary, along with him. O’ course, he figured thet with the baby in his arms nobuddy’d take a chanst on wingin’ him and mebbe killin’ the kid, an’ he was right. He never even got scratched the hull time. An’ I could tell you a hundred other things o’ the same kind, only you’d probably get tired listenin’ to them.”
“It certainly was a bad state of things,” said Bert at last, after a thoughtful silence, “but couldn’t the authorities do something to stop such wholesale killing?”
“Not much,” replied the mountaineer, “it would ’a taken every constable in Kentucky to cover this part o’ the country, an’ even then I reckon there wouldn’t ’a been anywhere near enough. They must ’a realized that,” he added drily, “’cause they didn’t try very hard, leastways, not as fur as I could see.”