She didn’t mention that going to that party was an absolute must for her and Ma. The Methodists had a “draw” for a turkey and other good things—though how they reconciled that with the admonition against gambling she had never been able to reckon—and gave food presents outright to families. They always came home full of a good dinner and with something for the pantry, and once they’d even gotten the turkey! It had lasted them for weeks, with every little bit of it used, even the bones, ground up between two stones patiently by her Ma and used to thicken the soup. And there were the stockings with sweets in them for the chillen—first, that was a free stocking, one that could be unraveled and knitted into a new, short pair for Ma, and second, all but one or two of the sweets got turned back into sugar-syrup to drizzle on Pa’s bread and pancakes.

Aunt Jinny made a disapproving noise. “Pa must be spinnin’ in his grave, that a gran-chile of his does wi’out stockings and shoon i’ the winter! I’m surprised he ain’t a-hauntin’ me . . . though, come ter think on it, he’d rightly be hauntin’ Lew Jones.”

But she looked so unhappy that Anna felt moved to pat her arm awkwardly. “I’m here now, Aunt Jinny. An’ yore a-makin’ me shoon, an’ a-getting me new close, an’ I’m a-gonna be able t’knit stockin’s. Ev’thin’s good.”

But Jinny just sighed. “I wisht thet Lew’d give yer Ma a reason t’leave ’im. Three on us c’d live good here. But he ain’t a-gonna, ’cause who else’d he git t’do fer ’im? He ain’t a handsome young buck no more, an’ he got Miner’s Cough.”

Anna sighed too, because she couldn’t imagine anything making her Ma leave Pa, and because she couldn’t think of any way to make their lives better. Pa already had a problem with Aunt Jinny sending potions to sell on. If they sent Ma anything like a parcel of food directly, and he found out about it, he’d probably throw it in the street.

“Wall . . . le’s go see what yarn I got left, an’ what’s left of my Ma’s ol’ close. Seems I ’member a wool skirt, an’ iffen I does—” she winked at Anna “—tha’s one thing I ain’t a-gonna have t’spend on.”

But she didn’t go to the old clothes chest. Instead, she went to another, a bigger, blanket chest, half-hidden under piles of clean sheets they’d washed just yesterday. She opened it up to the heady smell of cedar.

Out came woolen blankets that made Anna’s eyes widen. There would be warm sleeping this winter for sure! And there, at the bottom—those folds of blue—those were no blanket!

Out came not only a blue skirt, but a brown wool dress, both with the sorts of voluminous skirts that required hoops. “Wall now,” Aunt Jinny said with satisfaction. “I thunk I recollected that I niver cut these up fer rag rugs on account’a them bein’ too good! Even arter y’all fatten up, they’s plenty’a cloth here t’put new waistbands on, an’ plenty left over fer—well, mebbe another whole skirt!” She caressed the wool dress. “This here’s somethin’ called alpaca. ’Twere purdy dear, but ’twas her weddin’ dress, an arter thet, her Sunday best.”