Event+in+Huckleberry+Finn

In the novel Huck Finn, Huck is separated from Jim and is picked up by the Grangerford family. Huck's first impression of the family is that they are very generous. The family openly takes him in after a few questions and even provides him with his own personal slave. Huck's ideas of these people soon changed after he finds out the hate they express at the Shepherdson family. The two families express their hate in the most violent ways possible.

Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did."

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

"Why, nothing -- only it's on account of the feud."

"What's a feud?"

"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?"

"Never heard of it before -- tell me about it."

"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills HIM; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the COUSINS chip in -- and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."

"Has this one been going on long, Buck?"

"Well, I should RECKON! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along there. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the man that won the suit -- which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody would."

"What was the trouble about, Buck? -- land?"

"I reckon maybe -- I don't know."

"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Granger- ford or a Shepherdson?"

"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago."

The passage above explains why the hate between the two families is so violent. The hatred between the families could have ceased after the first generation but the tradition kept getting passed down. The hatred became so common that it was a way of life for the two families and the reasons for hatred soon faded away. The only reason the rivalry was present because the children were taught to hate the opposite family.

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