Kingsolver's tone shifts to more factual over page 50 and ahead.
The word <em>wishing </em>is used as a participle in this case. Although gerunds and participles look the same, they are used in different senses - gerunds generally denote nouns, whereas participles have more of an adverbial meaning.
the contented... oof. "contented" probably means "satisfied" in this context.
