“Yes, but what are they?” Then seeing how general questions failed, he went at it in detail.

“What do they use for yellow dye on the Porcupine quills—­I mean before the boughten dyes came?”

“Well, shure an’ that’s a purty yellow flower that grows in the fall out in the field an’ along the fences.  The Yaller Weed, I call it, an’ some calls it Goldenrod.  They bile the quills in wather with the flower.  Luk!  Thar’s some wool dyed that way.”

“An’ the red?” said Yan, scribbling away.

“Faix, an’ they had no rale good red.  They made a koind o’ red o’ berry juice b’iled, an’ wanst I seen a turrible nice red an ol’ squaw made b’ilin’ the quills fust in yaller awhile an’ next awhile in red.”

“What berries make the best red, Granny?”

“Well, ’tain’t the red wans, as ye moight think.  Ye kin make it of Rosberries or Sumac or Huckleberries an’ lots more, but Black Currants is redder than Red Currants, an’ Squaw berries is best av them all.”

“What are they like?”

“Shure, an’ Oi’ll show ye that same hairb,” and they wandered around outside the shanty in vain search.  “It’s too airly,” said Granny, “but it’s round thayer in heaps in August an’ is the purtiest red iver grew.  ‘An Pokeweed, too, it ain’t har’ly flowerin’ yit, but in the fall it hez berries that’s so red they’re nigh black, an’ dyes the purtiest kind o’ a purple.”

“What makes blue?”

“Oi niver sane none in the quills.  Thayer may be some.  The good Lord made iverything grow in the woods, but I ain’t found it an’ niver seen none.  Ye kin make a grane av the young shoots av Elder, but it ain’t purty like that,” and she pointed to a frightful emerald ribbon that Biddy wore, “an’ a brown of Butternut bark, an’ a black av White Oak chips an’ bark.  Ye kin make a kind o’ grane av two dips, wan of yaller an wan av black.  Ye kin dye black wid Hickory bark, an’ orange (bad scran to it) wid the inner bark of Birch, an’ yaller wid the roots av Hoop Ash, an’ a foine scarlet from the bark av the little root av Dogwood, but there ain’t no rale blue in the woods, an’ that’s what I tell them orange-an’-blue Prattisons on the 12th o’ July, fur what the Lord didn’t make the divil did.

“Ye kin make a koind of blue out o’ the Indigo hairb, but ’tain’t like this,” pointing to some screaming cobalt, “an’ if it ain’t in the woods the good Lord niver meant us to have it.  Yis!  I tell ye it’s the divil’s own colour, that blue-orange an’ blue is the divil’s own colours, shure enough, fur brimstone’s yaller; an’ its blue whin it’s burnin’, that I hed from his riv’rince himself—­bless him!”

XII.

Dinner with the Witch

Biddy meanwhile had waddled around the room slapping the boards with her broad bare feet as she prepared their dinner.  She was evidently trying to put on style, for she turned out her toes excessively.  She spoke several times about “the toime when she resoided with yer mamma,” then at length, “Whayer’s the tablecloth, Granny?”