Oi, 'an' Oi take it
kindly. It's the first Oi seen sense apple harvest, an' it's a friend
ye hev in me whin ye nade wan,'" and the old woman chuckled over her
victory.

"Granny, do you know what the Indians use for dyeing colours?" asked
Yan, harking back to his main purpose.

"Shure, Yahn, they jest goes to the store an' gets boughten dyes in
packages like we do."

"But before there were boughten dyes, didn't they use things in the
woods?"

"That they did, for shure. Iverything man iver naded the good Lord
made grow fur him in the woods."

"Yes, but what plants?"

"Faix, an' they differ fur different things."

"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 Hicko