Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

Cherokee had always lived in houses of wood that kept a body warm and snug in the winter with fireplaces that were built right in the center.
    Annalaura set the half-asleep Henry on his feet as they paused outside Becky’s front door. The unhappy-looking child set up a wail that sounded just like the one Charity used to imitate all the crying that occurred on that long walk out of North Carolina.
    “That walk to Oklahoma was from sunup to way past sundown, with the soldiers on their tall horses poking their fire sticks into the backs of anyone who lagged.” The old woman had always begun the tale the same way, as her bare and calloused feet set the old rocker in motion.
    “That piece of a trail was just about washed away in Cherokee tears.” Grandma Charity creaked the chair.
    Henry stamped his feet in time to his wailing as he reached his impatient arms up to Annalaura. The cabin door creaked open on its rusty hinges, and Aunt Becky peeped her head out of the gloom. She looked her visitors up and down, and as usual, Annalaura could not read her impassive face.
    “You feedin’ that chile?” All Cherokee women had the knowledge of the herbs, and most had at least a smattering of the gift of second sight. Aunt Becky always told her that. Rebecca Thornton Murdock was only half-Cherokee and that should have slowed her down, but the speed with which the old woman could read anybody’s intentions both annoyed and amazed Annalaura.
    “Just had dinner.” Even if Becky was close to knowing why she had come to her cabin, Annalaura couldn’t just blurt out that her children were so close to starving that it seemed an actual fact.
    Becky still held the door open only a crack. She turned that eye on Annalaura again. When the earthen-skinned woman finally did open the door, it was to grin a gap-toothed smile at Henry.
    “Come on in here, chile. Auntie’s got a treat fo’ you.” Becky slid a thin, calico-clad arm around the back of Henry’s head and guided him into the interior.
    Though the sun still showed promise of another good three hours of bright daylight, the kerosene lamp in the center of the old wood-blocked table that Annalaura remembered so well from her own girlhood remained the main source of light within the long room. The open-spaced cabin boasted one window, but Becky kept the lamp-oil-smudged window glass covered with particularly heavy burlap curtains. The heat from the lamp made the room even more suffocating than normal. Annalaura pulled out one of the two table chairs only to discover that a leg had loosened from its seat. Without a word of caution, Becky pulled out the other chair and pointed Henry in its direction. The old Cherokee disappeared into the semi-gloom of a corner where Annalaura knew the food safe, with its supplies, stood. After Rebecca twisted off a lid from a nearly empty jar, she reached for a spoon from the table. Scraping the sides and bottom, Becky came up with a tablespoon of peach preserves and held it out to Henry. The child beamed at the treat.
    “Jest had dinner, did he?” Becky spoke without laying her eyes on Annalaura. “What you gonna feed him fo’ supper?”
    Annalaura knew her aunt was indicting her for not being able to feed her own children. “Times is a little bit hard these days, is all.” She bent down to knock the wooden peg back into the chair leg.
    “Uh huh.” Becky had the weary sound of a woman who knew all about hard times.
    Times had gotten even harder after Geneva died. The good-as-orphaned Annalaura had never understood why her mother’s older sister had insisted upon keeping her at the cabin instead of letting her live with her grandmother. Her aunt would never say more than it had been a promise made to the dying Geneva. “Raise my girl. Don’t let her ever go to Momma.” But, when Annalaura got up to some size, she deviled the other colored children in the neighborhood until they whispered in her ear when they were sure her aunt wasn’t around. “There’s bad blood between yo’ Grandma Charity and yo’ Aunt Becky.” If they knew more, Annalaura couldn’t even beat it out of them.
    “Come on over here, baby.” Becky, her back bent from fifty-five years stooped over the tobacco plants, beckoned Henry who was playing with the spoon in his mouth.
    The boy licked at the long-gone taste of peach preserves. The wraith of a woman walked the child back into the gloom of the cabin and pulled out a small square of corn bread from the