His mother shook her head. “An’ men say women is vain!”

“Aw, Ma!” Joshua complained, but at the same time he made a sidewise glance at Anna, and she blushed all over again. She had no idea why she was having this reaction to Joshua. None of the boys in Soddy had ever made her feel this way.

But then again, none of the boys in Soddy had ever taken a first glance at her, much less a second and third the way Joshua was doing. Their eyes had always slid right over her, as if she weren’t even there. Josh was certainly not doing that. He kept looking at her as if he found her as interesting as she found him.

“Back to thet work, Josh,” his mother said. “Gotta make th’ best of th’ light.”

“Yes, Ma,” he said obediently, and went back to tapping lightly at the stone with his hammer and chisel, considering each blow before he took it.

Mrs. Holcroft led them back to her kitchen, with a glance into the kitchen shed where her daughter, who looked like a younger version of her mother down to the dress in the same sprigged cotton, presided over another stove, this a proper cast-iron one, made for cooking. An’ Pa thinks farmin’ ain’t wuth doin’! she thought to herself, admiring the display of such signs of success. Not one, but two proper stoves, and plenty of fuel to keep them going! Not to mention the wealth standing in the fields as a sign of admirable prosperity.

There was more tea to be poured out, and more gossip shared; Anna kept her mouth shut and her head down over her tea. But then a question was addressed to her.

“And how’s yore Ma, Anna?” Mrs. Holcroft asked.

It was a commonplace question, but Anna was not given a chance to answer.

“Maybelle’s ’xactly where I said she’d be, which’s hand-t’-mouth,” Aunt Jinny replied grimly. “Look at this chile! Skin an’ bones an’ a hank of hair! Thet no-good Llewellyn Jones cain’t even keep his own fambly fed!”

Anna wanted to sink into the chair and vanish.

“Niver shoulda married th’ boy,” Mrs. Holcroft agreed. “I dunno why a woman with a lick’a sense’d marry a miner, an’ a coal miner at thet!”

“Maybelle’s jest like her own Ma. Not a lick’a sense atwixt ’em.” Aunt Jinny shook her head. “On’y smart thang that woman ever did was marry my Pa. Wall, at least she made ’im happy, so there’s thet in her favor.”

“Wall, her Ma was a sad case, an’ I feel a liddle sorry fer her,” Mrs. Holcroft said charitably. “Weren’t her fault th’ boy she married turned out to be a gol-durned traitor.”

Hurriedly, Anna counted backward in her head, and realized that Mrs. Holcroft must’ve been referring to the War. “Y’all mean—” she blurted, about to say—he was a durned Yankee?

But Mrs. Holcroft interrupted her, and said the most surprising thing, with great venom. “He was a gol-durned Reb is what he was.” So it was a good thing she hadn’t had the chance to say that last piece.