 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
A Mountain Feud
Ten years before a lady from the settlements had
opened a school on the mountain. Jemina had no
pailful to school every morning and leaving it on Miss
Lafarge's desk. Miss Lafarge had died of delirium tremens
after a year's teaching, and so Jemina's education
had stopped.
Across the still stream still another still was standing.
It was that of the Doldrums. The Doldrums and the
Tantrums never exchanged calls.
They hated each other.
Fifty years before old Jem Doldrum and old Jem Tantrum
had quarrelled in the Tantrum cabin over a game
of slapjack. Jem Doldrum had thrown the king of
hearts in Jem Tantrum's face, and old Tantrum, enraged,
had felled the old Doldrum with the nine of diamonds.
Other Doldrums and Tantrums had joined in
and the little cabin was soon filled with flying cards.
Harstrum Doldrum, one of the younger Doldrums, lay
stretched on the floor writhing in agony, the ace of hearts
crammed down his throat. Jem Tantrum, standing in
the doorway, ran through suit after suit, his face alight
with fiendish hatred. Old Mappy Tantrum stood on
the table wetting down the Doldrums with hot whiskey.
Old Heck Doldrum, having finally run out of trumps,
was backed out of the cabin, striking left and right with
his tobacco pouch, and gathering around him the rest of
his clan. Then they mounted their steers and galloped
furiously home.
That night old man Doldrum and his sons, vowing
vengeance, had returned, put a ticktock on the Tantrum
window, stuck a pin in the doorbell, and beaten a
retreat.
A week later the Tantrums had put Cod Liver Oil
in the Doldrums' still, and so, from year to year, the
feud had continued, first one family being entirely
wiped out, then the other.
| Tales of the jazz age | |