Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/135

 ciiAXGixG coyiurroxs in Kentucky

��wins. ThiB w«a the BC»De of the Baker-Howard (eud. (ITioto by H. B«eae.)

Before us were two children, walking in single file, a boy of fourteen and a girl a year younger. Our youthful guide pointed in their direc- tion and remarked ; " They were married last spring. Some of us do get married that early hereabouts; but we who have been to the settle- ment school don't calculate to get married that soon."

" Store clothes " have displaced homespun garments, the result being unfavorable in the appearance of the men. However, the settlement schools are reviving the home-weaving industrj' to some extent. The belt is beginning to rival the suspender on "Sunday" garments.

The quaint Old English language also is disappearing, though slowly. It is becoming crystallized and is losing its flexibility whereby it was wont to be bent this way or that, to suit the fancy or fit the occasion. In a reminiscence of his boyhood, Professor Dizney tells of a minister in Dizney's valley, who, in preaching about apostasy, took as his text: "If they shall fall away," and who concluded in a high key:

"If thej shall fall away," means tbat the; can not fall ana?, for anybody vbo knows anything about the Engliah language knows that it la a verb in the impaitible mood and evertastiag tense!

There also comes to mind the following expression : " Law me, Honey, I'm glad to be back from the plains. Wooded mountains make the restinest place to lay your eyes on,"

There is about to pass away a most interesting folksong based upon English and Scotch ballads, and preserved verbally in the mountains with slight modification, from generation to generation. These songs

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