The Boy with the U.S. Census | Page 8

in a skirmish near
Cumberland Gap, I saw that he was jes' achin' to get me, an' the way he
tried was jes' about the meanes' thing I ever heard o' any one doin' on
the Ridge."
"How was it, do tell me?" pleaded Hamilton, his eyes shining with
interest.
"Howkle was with Wolford's cavalry, an' I was under 'Fightin''
Zollicoffer, as they called him," the old man began. "Thar had been a
little skirmish,--one o' these that never get into the dispatches that don'
do any good, but after which thar's always good men lef' lyin' on the
ground. We had driven 'em back a bit, an' I was comin' in when I saw a
lad--he didn't look more'n about fifteen--lyin' in a heap an' groanin'.
Knowin' a drink would do him more good than an'thin' else, I reached
for my canteen, an' stooped down. Jes' about then, a horseman dashed
out o' the scrub an', almos' befo' I could think o' what was comin', he
struck at me with his sabre."
"When you were giving drink to a wounded soldier!" cried Hamilton
indignantly. "What a cowardly trick!"
"It was ol' Isaac Howkle," nodded his uncle, "an' I s'pose he reckoned

this was a chance to get even on the ol' grudge. But I rolled over on the
grass jes' out o' reach o' his stroke, an' he missed. I grabbed my rifle an'
blazed at him as soon as I could get on my feet, but he had reached the
shelter of the trees again an' I missed him."
"That's about the meanest thing I ever heard," said the boy.
"So I thought," the Kentuckian answered, "an' so the poor lad seemed
to think too. I saw he was tryin' to speak, an' I put my ear close to his
lips, thinkin' he might have some message he wanted to give. But, tryin'
to look in the direction where Howkle had gone, he whispered, 'Don't
blame the Union.' He was thinkin' more o' the credit o' his side than of
his own sufferin's."
"That was grit," said Hamilton approvingly. "Did he die, Uncle Eli?"
"Not a bit of it. We got him back into our lines an' he was exchanged, I
believe. Anyway, I know he was livin' after the war, fo' I saw his name
once on a list o' veterans. But most o' the boys were like that--mostly
young, too--an' men o' the stripe of Isaac Howkle were very few."
"But you got him in the end, didn't you?"
The old mountaineer looked intently at the boy's excited face.
"I didn't," he said, "an' I don' rightly know that it's good for yo' to be
hearin' all these things. Yo' might hold it against Jake Howkle."
"That I wouldn't," protested Hamilton. "Jake isn't to blame for his
father's meanness."
"That's the right way to talk," the old soldier agreed. "Wa'al, if yo' feel
that way about it, I reckon thar's no harm in my tellin' yo' the rest of it,
now that I've got started. When the war was all over an' I got back hyeh,
I remembered what had happened, an' I sent word to Isaac Howkle that
I didn' trust him, an' after what he had done I was reckonin' that he was
waitin' his chance to get me, an' that he'd better keep his own side o' the
mountain."

"But, Uncle Eli," said the boy, "that didn't make a feud surely; that was
only a warning."
"I wasn't reckonin' to start a feud at all," said the old man thoughtfully,
"an' it really never was one. It was jes' a personal difference between
Isaac Howkle an' me. Thar was lots o' times that I could have picked
off either o' his two brothers, but I was jes' guardin' myself against
Isaac."
"But you said he got there first!" said the boy. "Did he shoot some one
in your family?"
"Wa'al, yes, he did," the mountaineer admitted "Yo' never knew the one.
He was my brother-in-law,--Ab's younges' sister's first husband. He had
been married jes' two months, an' was only a hundred yards from this
house when Isaac shot him."
"How did you know for sure that it was Howkle who had done the
shooting?" asked Hamilton.
"We didn't know for sure, at first. A week or two after, a boy from the
Wilshes' place come up with a message sayin' that Isaac Howkle had
tol' him to say that he'd get the ol' man nex' time."
"I shouldn't have thought a boy would have had the nerve to bring such
a message," said Hamilton thoughtfully. "Wouldn't bringing word like
that look like taking sides, and wouldn't it bring his own family into the
trouble!"
The old man shook his head in instant denial.
"Po' white