"Shure, Yahn, they jest goes to the store an' gets boughten dyes in packages like we do."
[210] "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."