Home Remedy

Banished to the front porch brother, sister and I lay, dispirited, on quilt pallets, with knees drawn up to meet our chins, spewing forth to the ground the meager contents of our aching stomachs. Mom called it "Summer Complaint." She took her third arm, the garden hoe, into the woods. The roots, scrubbed and boiled, imparted a brew so bitter we choked and sputtered but drank, at her command, with faces skewed, lips puckered. Not the worst of Mother’s home remedies brewed in her country kitchen, but close.