Ten years before a lady from the settlements had opened a school on
the mountain. Jemina had no money, but she had paid her way in
whiskey, bringing a 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.