"Don't rightly know. Maybe soon. Maybe not so soon."
For a moment Jeff was silent and Dan was still stuffing gingerbread into his mouth. Granny had spoken of trouble when Ike came, but apparently it was not trouble for herself, and if she wanted him to know more about it she would have told him. He wished he could offer her help, but he had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew how to help herself. He was trying to think of a way to steer the conversation away from Ike when Granny relieved him of the necessity for so doing.
"What you peddlin'?" she asked brightly.
Jeff fidgeted. The contents of his pack, for the most part, were designed for those who had little. Jeff tried to please people who yearned after a bit of gay ribbon, a new knife, anything they might need or desire but could not get for themselves. But he couldn't imagine what Granny lacked and countered her question with one of his own.
"Where do you get your thread and yarn?"
She looked surprised. "Spin it myself, to be sure. I have sheep. I grow flax, too."
Jeff followed up because he was interested. "Do you also make your own dyes?"
"Land, yes! 'Twould be a sin to let the yarbs go to waste when they grow right at the door step!"
"Do you use anything besides herbs?"
"Bark, seeds, nut husks and shells, it's all here. Take a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of another thing, seethe it, and there's a dye."