Anna had never woven anything in her life, much less a grass basket, but she was willing to try. These things were pretty, and she had used them when very little (during the few moments of the day when she was allowed to play instead of work) as dresses for her corn dollies.

When they had packaged up all the loose tea, they checked to make sure the ink had thoroughly dried in Anna’s “receipt book” before putting it, the bottle of ink, and the cleaned quill up on the same shelf as Aunt Jinny’s book. “Y’all’s gonna do one a day,” Aunt Jinny said with warm approval. “Mostly. There’s a-gonna be days when we ain’t got time, ’specially in fall, and there’s gonna be days when y’all ain’t gonna do it right. And there’s gonna be days when I take y’all out in them woods t’gather. But soon or late, y’all’s gonna hev yore very own receipt book. An’ y’all will be a Root Woman.” She gave Anna a sideways look. “Whatcha think of thet?”

“Niver heerd of no Root Woman goin’ hungry,” Anna said, finally. “But . . . Aunt Jinny, y’all said yore potions cain’t cure ever’thang.”

Her aunt nodded. “No more can they. Y’all does yore best, an’ leave th’ rest t’ God Almighty. Jest like a doctor, on’y I reckon a good Root Woman gits more people cured than a doctor.” She laughed humorlessly. “Leastwise, we don’t kill as many.”

“Ma wanted me took to a doctor an’ got mad when he couldn’ find nothin’,” she ventured.

“Wall, a doctor ain’t a-gonna find what was wrong with y’all,” her aunt said enigmatically. Then she changed the subject. “I’m partial t’somethin’ sweet with supper ternight. Le’s check them strawbs.”

Well the mention of anything sweet was going to get Anna’s attention, and checking the strawberries yielded four big handfuls. “Who’s the neighbors, Aunt Jinny?” she asked, as they brought their harvest, cupped in their aprons, up to the cabin.

“Got two. Got th’ ones as y’all passed comin’ inter th’ holler and ones deeper inter th’ holler. The farm b’longs t’ th’ Holcrofts, an’ like I said, they bought it from my Pa. They’s got six chillun, oldest boy’s Joshua, oldest girl Sue’s ’bout y’all’s age. Deep inter the holler’s Old Raven and Young Raven, an’ I think Young Raven’s wife—I ain’t niver seen ’er, on account of they make thesselves pretty scarce most of the time, but he’s spoke of her a time or twain. An’ some more people I gen’rally don’ see. They’s Cherokee.”

At Anna’s start, her aunt nodded. “I know. They was supposed t’be Removed. But my Granpappy didn’ cotton to thet notion, so when Jackson’s sojers came ’round, he made like he was too stupid t’unnerstand what them sojers wanted. The sojers knocked ’round the woods fer awhile, got thesselves chased off by bears, an’ decided there weren’t no Cherokee in Lonesome Holler at all. Then my Granpappy, he went inter town an’ put the claim on all the holler land soon’s claimin’ was open. Nobody wanted ter mess wi’ him t’make a counter-claim, an’ ever since we all jest pretend there ain’t no Cherokee back thar.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I wunner iffen folks read th’ same Bible as I do; rippin’ famblies off th’ land an’ even farms they’ve had since Methusalem was a pup, an’ all so a buncha greedy layabouts what happens t’be white kin claim it.”