y
to provoke."

[Illustration: TAKING THE CENSUS IN OLD KENTUCKY: Typical conditions of
an enumerator's work in the mountain districts. (_Courtesy of Art
Manufacturing Co., Amelia, O._)]

"Why, Uncle Eli!" cried Hamilton in amazement, "you talk as though the
days of the feuds were not over."

"Are yo' sure they're all over?" the Kentuckian said.

"I had supposed so," the boy replied. "I thought the Kentucky 'killings'
had stopped ten or fifteen years ago."

"It's a little queer yo' sh'd bring that up today," the old man said,
"for I was jes' readin' in the paper some figures on that very thing.
Yo' like figures, this will jes' suit you. Where was it now?" he
continued, rustling the paper; then, a moment later, "Oh, yes, I have
it."

"'During the terms of the last three Kentucky governors,'" he read,
"'over thirteen hundred criminals have been pardoned, five hundred of
them being for murder or manslaughter.' It says fu'ther on," the old man
added, "that pardonin' is jes' as frequent now as it ever was. I don'
believe it is, myself, but if thar is such a lot o' pardonin' goin' on
for shootin', thar must have been a powerful lot o' shootin'."

"But that's for all the State," objected the boy, "not for the
mountains only. That must be for crimes in the cities and all sorts of
things. You can't make the feuds responsible for those."

"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 no