Chapter 24
“I’ll get you some fresh dresses,”Awanita says.
After we are reasonably clean again,we put on our dresses.Anna’s fits her perfectly.But mine was obviously made for Awanita,and several inches of the skirt drag along the floor.Awanita pins up the ends to make it easier for me to walk.Our wet clothes are hung up before the fire to dry.
Next we all meet up in the study.A white man with brown hair,a mustache,and spectacles introduces himself as Silas Smith.
“Adahy is our youngest child,”he says.“We also have three girls and four other boys,all grown.I’ve lived here since I was a boy.There used to be a Cherokee settlement a few miles from here.I met Awanita and we fell in love.But that was the time President Andrew Jackson drove all the Cherokee,and other tribes,to Oklahoma.”
“The Trail of Tears,”Anna says softly.
I don’t bother anymore to ask why she knows about so many things that I don’t.