Braiding Sweetgrass

house but one. “Them are no count folks,” she said, and looked
away. The others seemed overjoyed to see Hazel again. My sister
and I would follow the chickens around or pet the hound dogs while
Mama and Hazel would visit with the neighbors.
These folks were very different from the ones we met at school
or at parties at the college. One lady reached out to tap my teeth.
“Those are mighty purty teeth you got,” she said. I’d never thought
that teeth were worthy of a compliment, but then I hadn’t met
people before who had so few. I mostly remember their kindness,
though. They were ladies Hazel had sung with in the choir of the
little white church under the pines. Ladies she had known since
girlhood, and they cackled together about dances by the river and
shook their heads sadly over the fate of kids who up and moved
away. We’d go home in the afternoon with a basket of fresh eggs
or a slice of cake for each of us and Hazel just beaming.
When winter began, our visits were fewer and the light seemed to
go out of Hazel’s eyes. She sat at our kitchen table one day and
said, “I know I shouldn’t ask the good Lord for nuthin more’n what I
already got, but how I wish I could have just one more Christmas in
my dear old home. But those days are gone. Gone with the wind.”
This was an ache for which the woods had no medicine.
We were not going north to my grandma and grandpa’s for
Christmas that year and my mother was taking it hard. It was still
weeks until Christmas but already she was baking up a fury while
we girls strung popcorn and cranberries for the tree. She talked
about how she would miss the snow, the smell of balsam, and her
family. And then she got an idea.
It was to be a complete surprise. She got the house key from
Sam and went to the old schoolhouse to see what she could do.
She got on the phone to the Rural Electric Co-op and arranged to