Josefina Montoya and her sisters love the comfortable traditions of life on her family's New Mexican rancho, but they are suspicious of the changes their Ti?a Dolores is bringing to the household because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother. Five short stories featuring Josefina are followed by brief accounts of what life was actually like in the southwest in the 1800s.

Josefina hopes to become a "curandera" or healer like Tia Magdalena, and she is tested just before her tenth birthday when a friend receives a potentially fatal snakebite.

Josefina and her sisters distrust learning to read and write, as well as other changes their Tia Dolores is bringing to the household, because they fear they will lose their memories of their mother.