And kiss the lips of your true lover.

So ended the infare wedding at the bride's home.

The next day all went to the home of the groom's parents and repeated
the feasting and dancing, and on the third day the celebration continued
at the home of the young couple.

In those days mountain people shared each other's work as well as their
play. Willing hands had already helped the young groom raise his house
of logs on a house seat given by his parents, and along the same creek.

It was the way civilization moved. The son settled on the creek where
his father, like his before him, had settled, only moving farther up
toward its source as his father had done when he had wed.

5. RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS

FUNERALIZING

To the outsider far removed, or even to people in the nearby lowlands,
mountain people may seem stoic. A mountain woman whose husband is being
tried for his life may sit like a figure of stone not for lack of
feeling, but because she'd rather die than let the other side know her
anguish. A little boy who loses his father will steal off to cliff or
wood and suffer in silence. No one shall see or know his grief. "He's
got a-bound to act like a man, now." The burden of the family is upon
his young shoulders.

Mountain folk love oratory. Men, especially, will travel miles to a
speaking--which may be a political gathering or one for the purpose of
discussing road building.

To all outward appearances they seem unmoved, yet they drink in with
deep emotion all that is said. Both men and women are eager to go to
meeting. Meeting to them means a religious gathering. Here they listen
with rapt attention to the lesser eloquence of the mountain preacher.
But at meeting, unlike at speaking, they give vent to their emotions,
especially if the occasion be that of funeralizing the dead.

Much has been written upon this custom, but the question still prevails,
"Why do mountain people hold a funeral so long after burial?"

The reason is this. Long ago, before good roads were even dreamed of in
the wilderness, when death came, burial of necessity followed
immediately. But often long weeks, even months, elapsed before the word
reached relatives and friends. There were few newspapers in those days
and often as not there were those who could neither read nor write. For
the same reason there was little, if any, exchange of letters.

So the custom of funeralizin