Chapters Seventeen through Nineteen Summary

During the long winter in Chapter Seventeen, Katherine gets to know her five-month-old daughter. Mrs. Mike is pregnant again and seeks help from Sarah and her squaw root medicine for labor and delivery. Sarah's workroom smells of decay and the décor consists of dead plants, animals and other items belonging "at the bottom of swamps, under rocks, or in nightmares" (pg. 192.)

Mrs. Marlin comes to the door of Sarah's shed in search of bad medicine. She wants to terminate her own pregnancy, and Sarah finally helps her by giving her the medicine she seeks. Sarah explains to Katherine that when she did not give the medicine to a woman in the past, the woman tried to mangle her own baby. Sarah took this baby and tried to heal it; she could not heal the damage already...