But her growing weakness didn’t seem to have the old symptom of nausea attached, at least.

They didn’t actually go into the part of town where the streets had been paved with bricks, although in the distance she could see the place where dirt gave way to brick, and marveled all over again. If you never left that part of town, think how easy it would be to keep the hem of your dress clean! No dragging it in the dirt and mud, no laborious scrubbing away at it with a brush and bucket of water before you went to bed!

Jeb’s house was at least three rooms bigger than Pa’s, maybe more. And the barn was near as nice as the house, all neatened and painted up with red lead paint. He didn’t even have to guide Daisy; she knew her way and knew a rest in a stall with hay and water was waiting for her. She picked up her pace right smart, her ears up, her head bobbing. Jeb’s kids must have been watching for him, because the wagon got swarmed by them before Daisy even came to a halt. Jeb laughed, and shouted out orders. Somehow the mule got led into the barn, unharnessed, and put in her stall before either of them were ready to climb out of the wagon.

Jeb lifted her down, got her bundle from the back, and handed it to her. By this time the swarm of kids resolved itself into a mere three: a boy her age or a little older, a girl about ten, and a boy about six. The boys didn’t interest her much, but the little girl’s neat white pinafore over a gingham dress that clearly was not sewn from flour sacks inspired her with a surge of envy. Ma had never had a dress that wasn’t made from flour sacks, at least not in Anna’s memory. And Anna had never had a dress that hadn’t been cut down from one of Ma’s that couldn’t be patched together no more.

“This’s Anna,” Jeb said to his kids, with a stern look. “She’s Miz Jinny’s kin. Anna, this’s Hal, Sue, an’ Bobby.”

“The witch?” the older boy blurted, his eyes gone big and round. “She’s kin t’the witch of Lonesome Holler?”

“We don’ call her a witch, boy,” Jeb corrected. “She’s a Root Woman. An iffen it weren’t fer her potions, you’d likely be under sod right now.” He glared at the boy, who dropped his eyes to his bare toes and scuffed them in the straw on the barn floor.

“Is she a-stayin’?” asked the girl, eyeing Anna with interest.

“On’y overnight. Then she goes to Miz Jinny, her aunt. She’s stayin’ in the barn, an’ you are a-gonna go to bed at bedtime and no sneakin’ out an’ larkin’ about in the hay.” The oldest boy came in for a glare that made him and Anna blush, likely because they both knew that “larkin’ about” did not mean games and giggles as the younger children thought. I’d never! Anna thought indignantly—but then, from the fact that Jeb had glared at his son and his son only, there might be a bit of history there she was better off not knowing.