Vera Cleaver

In the Great Smoky Mountains region, a fourteen-year-old girl struggles to keep her family together after their father dies. Mary Call has promised her dying father to keep her brother and sisters together forever on the mountain, and never to take any help from strangers. She is determined to keep her word. No matter what. At first she is sure she can manage. Romey, Ima Dean, and Devola help gather herbs to sell in town; the riches of the mountains...

Although there is no love lost between them, twelve-year-old Wilma is her wilful and peppery grandmother's choice for a companion.