“Why’d ’e come t’ ’Merica?” she asked.

“Same as ’bout anybody else. It were purdy bad where ’e was.” She shrugged. “He didn’ talk ’bout it much, so I reckon it were plenty bad. He purely loved these hills. An’ he was blood brothers with Eagle Sight. It were Eagle Sight an’ his wife what taught him how t’plant the Three Sisters t’gether, an’ as I said, taught Granny the Root Woman ways.”

“Three Sisters?” Anna asked, now thoroughly bewildered.

“Corn, beans, an’ squash,” Aunt Jinny told her. “Maybe a liddle manure or fish head in each hill fer good measure. The three of ’em are like sisters, they he’p each other grow. Corn give beans a place t’climb, beans feed corn’n’ squash, squash leaves cover th’ground so no weeds grow, an’ the prickles on the squash leaves is nasty t’bugs.”

“I ain’t niver heerd that,” Anna marveled, knowing it had to be true, because hadn’t she seen the results with her own eyes?

“Tha’s on account of fools don’t listen t’ them as knows, ’cause they’s too busy a-babblin’ ’bout how smart they be,” Jinny said, with a touch of acid. “But wise men keeps their mouths shut, and gets wiser.”

And that certainly gave her something to think about, as she climbed the ladder to the loft and her warm feather bed. Roosha! What must that be like, if Tennessee winters were like spring to Aunt Jinny’s Granpappy?

When she slept, she dreamed of dreaming, drowsing in a warm featherbed on top of the stove, while snow piled up to the roof, and the fire sang to itself on the hearth.

6

THE next day was Sunday by Anna’s reckoning, but Aunt Jinny showed no signs of it being any different than any other day. So finally, as they were finishing breakfast, Anna spoke up timidly. “Aunt Jinny? Ain’t we a-gonna put on our good thangs an’ go t’church?”

Her aunt didn’t even pause in gathering up the dishes and taking them to the sink. “Nearest church is Ducktown. Even if I’d let y’all go there, which I ain’t gonna, we ain’t got no wagon nor mule. So we’d hev t’ hev started out at dawn, we’d just get there ’bout time for afternoon service, an’ it’d be past dark when we got home. Who’d feed an’ muck out th’ pigs? Who’d see the chickens was put up? Leave ’em out arter dark an’ there won’t be no chickens left.”

“But . . .” she was bewildered. “If we ain’t a-goin’ t’church—”

“Y’all kin sit an’ read yore Bible arter supper, while th’ light lasts,” Jinny replied, in tones that brooked no argument. “We got work t’do, Sunday or no Sunday. Ain’t no day of rest fer a farmer till winter.”

After that, Anna didn’t dare say anything. She just washed her clothing as always (including, at Jinny’s prompting, the nightgown), and weeded as always, and there was no real change.