“Toads gives warts.  You seen them McKenna twins—­their hands is a sight with warts.  Well, I seen them two boys playing with Toads like they was marbles.  So!  An’ they might a-knowed what was comin’.  Ain’t every Toad just covered with warts as thick as he can stick?

“That there’s Injun tobacco.  The Injuns always use it, and Granny does, too, sometimes.” (Yan made special note of this—­he must get some and smoke it, if it was Indian.)

“A Witch-hazel wand will bob over a hidden spring and show where to dig.  Denny Scully is awful good at it.  He gets a dollar for showing where to sink a well, an’ if they don’t strike water it’s because they didn’t dig where he said, or spiled the charm some way or nuther, and hez to try over.

“Now, that’s Dandelion.  Its roots makes awful good coffee.  Granny allers uses it.  She says that it is healthier than store coffee, but Maw says she likes boughten things best, and the more they cost the better she likes them.

“Now, that’s Ginseng.  It has a terrible pretty flower in spring.  There’s tons and tons of it sent to China.  Granny says the Chinese eats it, to make them cheerful, but they don’t seem to eat enough.

“There’s Slippery Elm.  It’s awfully good for loosening up a cold, if you drink the juice the bark’s bin biled in.  One spring Granny made a bucketful.  She set it outside to cool, an’ the pig he drunk it all up, an’ he must a had a cold, for it loosened him up so he dropped his back teeth.  I seen them myself lying out there in the yard.  Yes, I did.

“That’s Wintergreen.  Lots of boys I know chew that to make the girls like them.  Lots of them gits a beau that way, too.  I done it myself many’s a time.

“Now, that is what some folks calls Injun Turnip, an’ the children calls it Jack-in-a-Pulpit, but Granny calls it ‘Sorry-plant,’ cos she says when any one eats it it makes them feel sorry for the last fool thing they done.  I’ll put some in your Paw’s coffee next time he licks yer and mebbe that’ll make him quit.  It just makes me sick to see ye gettin’ licked fur every little thing ye can’t help.

“A Snake’s tongue is its sting.  You put your foot on a Snake and see how he tries to sting you.  An’ his tail don’t die till sundown.  I seen that myself, onct, an’ Granny says so, too, an’ what Granny don’t know ain’t knowledge—­it’s only book-larnin’.”

These were her superstitions, most of them more or less obviously absurd to Yan; but she had also a smattering of backwoods lore and Yan gleaned all he could.

She had so much of what he wanted to know that he had almost made up his mind to tell her where he went each Saturday when he had finished his work.

A week or two longer and she would have shared the great secret, but something took place to end their comradeship.

XI

Lung Balm

One day as this girl went with him through a little grove on the edge of the town, she stopped at a certain tree and said: