A Plain Story, Straightforwardly Told; But Mumford Told Me That That
Pilot Had 'gilded That Scare Of His, In Spots;' That His Subsequent
Career In The War Was Proof Of It.
We struck down through the chute of Island No.
8, and I went below and
fell into conversation with a passenger, a handsome man, with easy
carriage and an intelligent face. We were approaching Island No. 10, a
place so celebrated during the war. This gentleman's home was on the
main shore in its neighborhood. I had some talk with him about the war
times; but presently the discourse fell upon 'feuds,' for in no part of
the South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer
between warring families, than in this particular region. This gentleman
said -
'There's been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckon
the worst one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don't
know now what the first quarrel was about, it's so long ago; the
Darnells and the Watsons don't know, if there's any of them living,
which I don't think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a cow -
anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn't of no
consequence - none in the world - both families was rich. The thing could
have been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn't do. Rough words
had been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that.
That horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing and
crippling! Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other;
and as fast as one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud
and kept it a-going. And it's just as I say; they went on shooting each
other, year in and year out - making a kind of a religion of it, you see
- till they'd done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever a
Darnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of 'em was
going to get hurt - only question was, which of them got the drop on the
other. They'd shoot one another down, right in the presence of the
family. They didn't hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet,
they puffed and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A
man shot a boy twelve years old - happened on him in the woods, and
didn't give him no chance. If he HAD 'a' given him a chance, the boy'd
'a' shot him. Both families belonged to the same church (everybody
around here is religious); through all this fifty or sixty years' fuss,
both tribes was there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of
the line, and the church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the
church and half the aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee.
Sundays you'd see the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes,
men, women, and children, and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and
orderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on
the Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against
the wall, handy, and then all hands would join in with the prayer and
praise; though they say the man next the aisle didn't kneel down, along
with the rest of the family; kind of stood guard.
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