is to be married soon.”

“They do grow up — the leetle ones. Hit don’t seem mo’n yestahday ‘at Cass was like leetle Hoyle yandah, an’ hit don’t seem that since Doctah Hoyle was here an’ leetle Hoyle came. We named him fer th’ doctah. Waal, I reckon ef th’ doctah was here now ‘at he could he’p me some. Maybe ef he’d ‘a’ stayed here I nevah would ‘a’ got down whar I be now. He was a right good doctah, bettah’n a yarb doctah — most — I reckon so.”

David smiled. “I think so myself,” he said. “Are there many herb doctors here about?”

“Not rightly doctahs, so to speak, but they is some ‘at knows a heap about yarbs.”