274 Singing Valleys 



Mag is frankly suspicious of our doctor's ability to heal the 

 sick. She walked six miles down the valley to see a woman 

 whose little daughter had died a week before of whooping 

 cough. "Efen I'd a known how 't was with the young 'un I'd a 

 been here quicker'n a flea. Efen you'd a slapped a hot corn 

 poultice onto her chest she would 'a been skippin' out there 

 in the yard this minute. A hot corn poultice'll suck out any 

 pizen there is in a body." 



Hot corn poultices for coughs and pleurisy and pneumonia; 

 a salve of cornmeal and honey for boils and sties on the eyes; 

 a slice of salt pork, well peppered, bound round the throat 

 in a rag of red flannel for the quinsy and a cornsilk tea for 

 urinary troubles these are Mag's remedies. 



"What's the use o' bein' pukin' an' ailin' when pretty near 

 everything a body needs to keep well is a-growin' right in your 

 own yard?" she says. "These here women with their headache 

 powders and their bottle medicine . . . Shucks. Efen they 

 was to string some corn onto a thread and wear it round their 

 necks like it was beads, they'd be as peart as a day-old chick. 

 There's some folks likes to go doctorin', though." 



The hills that wall the valley have held all of Mag's life like 

 a cup. Whatever lies beyond them interests her as little as what 

 lies beyond Judgment Day. All that is the Lord's affair, not 

 hers. But everything that happens to anyone within the valley 

 is of instant and acute concern to Mag Six, in her little two- 

 room, whitewashed stone cottage by the Furnace. 



"That measly Sam Hostetter'll land in the County House," 

 she said. "Burns his corncobs." 



"What's wrong with that?" I shouted. "You do it. I've 

 seen you throw on a whole apronful to heat up the oven." 



"Not my seed corncobs," she snapped. "Catch me putting 

 one of them into the stove. You've got to bury the cobs you 

 take the seed off'n. Or else throw 'em into the branch. Earth's 

 got to have the cobs, same as the seed, to raise you a crop." 



"Not worth hoein' corn for" is the worst Mag can say of one 

 of her sex. A man "too lazy to hoe a row" is less than the 



