“Wall, it’s a sight nicer t’be workin’ here with y’all watchin’,” he replied. “A feller does like t’hev a purdy gal takin’ a shine t’what he’s a-doin’.”

She felt her cheeks flame and she didn’t know quite where to look.

“It’s even better,” he continued, bending back over his work again, “when a purdy gal likes a feller’s company enough thet she don’t mind when he goes on a-workin’.”

“How long y’all been a-carvin’?” she asked, wrenching her mind away from the undisputed fact that he’d said she was purdy.

“Long as I been allowed t’hold a knife,” he replied, etching out the quill of another of the angel wing’s long feathers. “Afore thet, I was a-takin’ clay when I could git it, an’ mud when I couldn’, an’ makin’ things wi’ it. Reckon I was ’bout ten when I started takin’ trinkets like carved stocks an’ knife-handles t’the General Store t’barter, and Mistuh Cavenel seed ’em, an’ wanted ter know who was a-doin’ the carvin’. Next thin’ I knowed, I was carvin’ names an’ dates an’ sometimes a purdy liddle headpiece in headstones. Pay’s good ’nough thet between thet an’ th’ liddle stuff I carve, Pa don’t make me do farmwork ’lessen he has to. An’ thet ain’t too often, now thet Jimmie’s old ’nough thet he c’n do ever’thang I can. So I ain’t allus workin’. Sometimes I ain’t workin’ a-tall.”

Now he glanced up at Anna with a raised eyebrow. “What I’m a-tryin’ ter say, Miss Anna May Jones, is thet I do gots free time now an’ agin, an’ I’d admire yore company iffen y’all gets free time too.”

For a moment she felt too flustered to answer. Then she managed to choke out—“Y’all’d hev ter arst Aunt Jinny.”

He nodded, as if that was a given, which of course it was. “So I could arst her when we’re all a-goin’ inter Ducktown t’deliver this here liddle angel. Or on th’ way back. Seems a fine plan.”

“I—I’d—thet would be a fine plan,” she stammered. And then realized that she had spent so long down here that it was almost dinnertime, and her aunt would be waiting impatiently for her. “I gots ter go—”

“It’s ’bout dinnertime, an’ Miz Jinny won’ like it iffen y’all’re late,” he agreed, and stuck out his hand. “So I’ll be a-seein’ y’all when I comes up the Holler t’ let y’all know we’re a-goin’ t’ town, then.”

“A’course,” she said breathlessly, taking his hand and shaking it.

She didn’t remember turning to leave, but she must have, because when she finally got control of her whirling thoughts and blushing cheeks, she was about to climb the stile over the garden fence, and her aunt was waving at her from the cabin porch.

10

AS they had promised, about two days after the rain, the two Cherokee came bearing mushrooms. This time when they arrived, Aunt Jinny was around the back of the cabin, and Anna was vigorously sweeping the floor and trying not to think too hard about Joshua and when he’d finally finish polishing that stone statue. It was a sultry morning; a lot of the wet from that torrential day of rain was still burning off. Her aunt was checking on the root cellar, to make sure the few things in there hadn’t gone moldy or started to sprout. If the latter—never one to waste anything, Jinny planned to try to find a place to wedge the growing plant somewhere into the garden.