Grandma reached into the elbow-deep pockets, emptying them of cedar shavings. “Moths live hard where you keep sweetwood,” she said. Her hands flicked in and out. “This coat belonged to my second boy, Vester. I made hit to pleasure him in his last sickness. Brewed a pot o’ madder roots to dye red, madder being far and beyond the warmest color. A wee shikepoke of a child Vester was, and thin, thin. But he bore the same countenance as his father, a sight noble to see. When he sunk low and was gone, I saved this one piece.”

I tried to think of Vester, a slim knuckle-knob of a fellow, my size and age; but I remembered Oates Bran-non instead: Oates and I walking under the apple trees, stepping small amongst the mushrooms, and the old cat with a broken tail worrying the birds. I remembered Oates’s tushes, and heard his words again. “You Bald-ridges is spotted round the liver . . .”

I measured the coat with my eyes, feeling no hope of wearing it. A recollection of Vester, to be saved ever more. And I kept hearing Oates speak his hateful words. I stood up suddenly, filled with a great anger. “A wonder Aus Coggins’s still alive,” I blurted. “A wonder Uncle Jolly “

“Try the coat,” Grandma commanded. I held my cuffs and slid arms through the sleeves. It was a full body fit, coming to my knees, though the sleeves were short, barely to wrists. I felt warm as a bag of wool. “Now stand where I can see the fitting,” Grandma said. “I’ve got a thing to tell you.”

I waited, as a mollygrub waits inside its fleeced hull.

“On Boone Middleton’s burying day I had my boys promise. They tuck oath on the Book. Tuck it every one except Jolly, he being only twelve, and too young for swearing. I said: ‘There’s been blood shed a-plenty. Let Aus Coggins bide his time out on this earth. Fear will hant his nights. Hit’ll be a thorn in his flesh. Let him live in fear. He’ll never prosper nor do well. Let him live in sufferance.’ I said this, and more.”

Grandma began to cry. A mousy sound came through her nose. Water beads hung on her cheeks. “You’re the spit image o’ Vester in that coat,” she said. “Hit’ll pleasure me no end to see you wear it.” She caught arms around me, putting her face against my sleeve. And when I drew back, ashamed to be hugged, she lifted her head and her eyes were damp and bright. “Child,” she asked, “where’d you strike the quare notion to be a horse doctor?”

BEFORE a tip of green showed in any brushy place you could feel spring growing through the sky. The robins came early, cocking heads in the cold. The gray bodies of goldfinches yellowed, for all the world like pussy buds blooming. And where no other sign held on wood or field, finger twigs of elder and willow and service swelled beneath their hull of bark.