The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-08-11

house and l said: | am not going to
quit this feud business, cause I've al
ready quit
Leaves Feud Behind Him.
II went back to West Virginia and
joined the church. The Baptist Edu-
cational society thought they saw
some possibility in me and gave me
SEQ to go to Dennison university IN
Ohio. / had had ten months school
ing in the district schools of the
mountains, in three winter terms
not very good preparation for en-
tering university, but l went. May.
be didn't learn very much from
books, but learned this. that those
boys in that school could forgive an
enemy who was in their power. Thoes
northern boys, in their debates, were
always saying something about the
rebels in the south. didn't say any
thing back at them. l just waited I'M
til came on to the floor in debate,
! and / told them that if were they l
wouldn't say any more about the reb-
els, for maybe the northerners did
win, but from the pension records,
what We didn't kill, we'd crippled for
the government had about gone bank
rupt paying pensions. When / said
that to those northern boys,
thought, well, there will be shootin'
in the morning; for they won't take
| tEat. was speechiess with amaze
ment. when at the end Of the meet
ing, those northern boys came up
and shook me by the hand and said:
Good for you, you gave 1t to us
straight. That's what learned in
Dennison university-the spirit OF
forgiveness and how to forget. Right
there l thought, I'll go back to the
Cumberland mountains and carry
them the message OF forgiveness, and
| l knew the way to teach that lesson
! was to get the children together in a
school and tell them every day, in
plain language, and repeat it again
and again, the story Of the Man who
not only forgave His enemies, but
died for the redemption. And SO /
left Dennison at the end Of seven
months and / was called an ingrats
and was written up in the church pa
pers as the boy who had been given
a chance for an education and who
had turned his back on it all to go
back to the feudists of Kentucky.
He Begins to Teach.
But went back just the same,
and began teaching in the log school
houses, six days in the week, winter
and summer, and preaching in the
same school, houses on Sunday. /
did this for seven years, but
wasn't onlnipresent and as soon as
I'd transformed one valley and gone
on to the next mountain, and going
back for a visit in the valley I'd find
they had refrigerated.
About that time the Baker-Howard
feud broke out again and felt now
the time had come to do something,
and what l did was really desperate
thing. went to the older men in
all the settlements and asked them
to meet me in an old mill shed, the
posts of which We're veritahle lead
mines, and most of the men whom I
had asked had helped to put those
bullets there. The reason | asked
only the older men was because the
feud fight is always started by a
reckless, thoughtless boy or by an ir-
responsible drunken man. If there is
one thing that makes me nader than
another, it is to read in some paper,
that the feud leaders are a blood
thirsty lot A feud leaders. life is
given to keeping down a fight, but
when the battle is drawn, he's the
first into it and the last one to stop
shooting"
How Feuds Started.
Then Burnes told how feuds came