Her lips moved, counting silently, as she apportioned the containers and set them in a carrier.
“Mind you bring those back. And don’t, don’t you dare leave them where any hoppers can put paw on them!”
“No, ma’am. Something sure smells good.”
She smiled proudly. “Those golden apples. We stewed some up into a kind of pudding. Just you wait ’til you taste it, young man. Which reminds me-where is that queer leaf, Petra?”
The dark- haired girl who had been stirring the largest pot on the stove pulled a glossy green leaf from one of her pockets. It was an almost perfect triangle in shape-green, threaded by bright red and yellow veins.
“Ever see one like that before, Dard?” Trude asked.
He took it and examined it curiously before he answered with a shake of his head.
“Pinch it and give a sniff!” Trude suggested.
He did and the good odor of cooking was nullified by another aromatic, clean fragrance, a mixture of herb and flower-of all the pleasant scents he had ever known.
“You can rub it on skin or hair and the scent lingers,” Petra told him eagerly.