“Now, that there’s supper and breakfus’ sorted,” Jeb said as he got Daisy moving again. He looked over at Anna and his old blue eyes twinkled. “Saw y’all a-hankerin’ over thet corn, an’ I’m partial to a roastin’ ear m’self.”

“Thenkee, sir,” she said quietly, her hands clasped on the edge of the seat. “Where’d y’all get thet there knife?”

“Make ’em m’self from scrap iron,” Jeb replied. “I ain’t no smith, but m’Pa taught me how, so’s I’d allus hev’ somethin’ t’trade fer. When winter sets in an’ there ain’t so much cartin’ t’be done, I takes my liddle scraps of iron an’ I makes blanks. Man allus has t’hev two strings t’his bow, my Pa useta say, and I gets a better bargain tradin’ than payin’ fer most liddle things.”

For the first time in a very long time, Anna was actually feeling hungry by the time they crossed another crick, and Jeb declared it was dinnertime. He slipped the mule’s bit this time so she could eat proper, tied her up near enough to the crick so she could drink, and they set up upstream, under the trees, amongst the moss and roots. It was cool and breezy, the moss was soft to sit on, and the crick sounded cheerful. Jeb brought down a tin cup to share, the basket of blackberries, and her little packet of cornbread and a bigger packet folded in a square of cheesecloth. When she opened her packet, he stared at it a minute and frowned, then patted her shoulder. “Y’all put thet away fer now,” he said, and opened his own packet. “I got too much t’et by m’self, reckon y’all kin he’p.” And he handed her a fat half-moon of piecrust stuffed with something.

Piecrust! They almost never had pie. You needed flour and lard or suet for it; flour was better saved for bread, and lard hard to come by.

She wrapped her cornbread back up, and held the piecrust-thing he had given her in her lap, staring at it. “What is it?” she asked.

“Fancy a good Taffy gal not knowin’ a pasty when she sees one!” he scoffed. “Must be ’cause yore Ma niver learnt t’do ’em fer yore Pa. That there’s a pasty. Miners et ’em. Pie crust nice as nice, stuffed with whatever y’all got at hand. Missus Davies, what I stay with in Soddy overnight, makes ’em fer m’trip home. Now—” He ducked his head and clasped his hands and she did the same. “For what we’re about to et, thenkee, Jesus,” he said, then watched her until she took a tentative bite of the thing before he tucked into his own. She nearly dropped it in surprise to taste the meat in among the carrots, turnips, and potatoes, little shreds of meat and enough gravy to hold it all together too. “Now, that crimpy crust ’round the edge, y’ain’t supposed to et that. Y’all throw it down the mine fer the tommyknockers, so they don’t steal yore lunchpail or let the mine roof fall on ya. Now, we ain’t gonna give our’n t’ the tommyknockers, but we’re a-gonna save it anyway, ’cause I got a notion.” He nodded wisely, and said nothing more; after thanking him profusely—and marveling at the idea of being able to throw good food away—Anna was too busy enjoying every bite to talk. And she was stuffed so full that she couldn’t have eaten that outer crimped crust anyway, so she handed it over to him and he folded it with a little bit of his in the cheesecloth. Then, for no reason that she could determine, he stopped and cut a couple of willow rods and threw them in the back of the otherwise empty wagon.