Page:Scarlet Sister Mary (1928).pdf/70

 June made quick work of it, then he mended the roof of the house so no drop of rain could beat through.

Mary was heavy, but many tasks to be done kept her days filled from morning until night. A woman who is about to bear a child has a strangely good hand for planting seed; something magic in her touch makes the seed sprout quickly and grow fast and mature in half the regular time. Everybody in the Quarters who planted a winter vegetable garden wanted Mary to drop the seed.

Medicines brewed by a woman at such a time have more strength to cure ailments, and her hearth was kept full of pots holding herbs and roots for remedies, the Quarter people kept always on hand. Even Daddy Cudjoe, the old conjure doctor, brought some of his root teas for her to stir.

July did some things that were hard to under stand, but he made a good husband, for she never trusted any woman with him. Not one. The sweet-mouthed ones, the very ones whose mouths would not melt butter, were the very ones July liked best. Mary told him a lot he did not know. One thing was not to trust kind-talking, oily-worded women.

It wasn't that she herself suspected July of