y in such customs; but they
betoken an indifference to woman's weakness, a disregard for her finer
nature, a denial of her proper rank, that are real and deep-seated in
the mountaineer. To him she is little more than a sort of superior
domestic animal. The chivalric regard for women that characterized our
pioneers of the Far West is altogether lacking in the habits of the
backwoodsman of Appalachia.

And yet it is seldom that a highland woman complains of her lot. She
knows no other. From aboriginal times the men of her race have been
warriors, hunters, herdsmen, clearers of forests, and their women have
toiled in the fields. Indeed she would scarce respect her husband if he
did not lord it over her and cast upon her the menial tasks. It is
"manners" for a woman to drudge and obey. All respectable wives do that.
And they stay at home where they belong, never visiting or going
anywhere without first asking their husband's consent.

I am satisfied that there is less bickering in mountain households than
in the most advanced society of Christendom. Certainly there are fewer
divorces in proportion to the marriages. This is not by grace of any
uncommon regard for the seventh commandment, but rather from a more
tolerant attitude of mind.

Mountain women marry early, many of them at fourteen or fifteen, and
nearly all before they are twenty. Large families are the rule, seven
to ten children being considered normal, and fifteen is not an uncommon
number; but the infant mortality is high.

The children have few toys other than rag dolls, broken bits of crockery
for "play-purties," and such "ridey-hosses" and so forth as they make
for themselves. They play few games, but rather frisk about like young
colts without aim or method. Every mountain child has at least one dog
for a playfellow, and sometimes a pet pig is equally familiar. In many
districts there is not enough level land for a ballground. A prime
amusement of the small boys is "rocking" (throwing stones at marks or at
each other), in which rather doubtful pastime they become singularly
expert.

To encourage a child to do chores about the house and stable, he may be
promised a pig of his own the next time a sow litters. To know when to
look for the pigs an expedient is practiced that I never heard of
elsewhere: the child bores a small hole at the base of his thumbnail. I
was assured by a mountain preacher that the hole "will grow out to the
edge of the nail in thre