Red spotted cow:
Who will then milk you,
When I am away?”
“Foolish stuff!” she added, and scolded herself. Then she finished her work quietly, and in the mean time life stirred in the house. Scarcely was Rose fully awake, when she called for Barefoot, and blamed her harshly; for Rose had lost a beautiful neck-ribbon. She declared she gave it to Amrie to keep for her; and she, in her foolish eagerness, when the stranger asked her to dance, had thrown it away with the others.
“Who knows,” she asked, “whether he were not a thief, who had stolen his horse and his dress; to-morrow he might be brought in with chains on his hands. And what a shame it was, that Barefoot had danced so high and spoken so loud. It was the first and the last time she would take her to a dance. Her eyes, indeed, had been shamed out of her head, when she heard everybody ask,—‘So she is your servant, is she?’ If the sister-in-law did not command, and they all must follow her orders, the goose-herd should instantly quit the house.”
Barefoot endured every thing calmly. She had already to-day experienced both extremes of what she must expect, and had taken the course which she intended to hold. If scolded, she silently shook it off; if joked, she knew how to give back better jokes than she received. If she had not always a burning brand at hand, as for the stable-boy, she had glances and words that served her as well.
It was impossible to tell Brown Mariann all that Rose made her suffer; and as she could not speak in that house, she let her tongue loose, and at other times blamed Rose with violence. But quickly she reflected, and said, “Ah! this is not right. I am as bad as she is, when I take such words into my mouth.”
Mariann consoled her. “It is brave,” she said, “to scold thus. Why, when one looks upon a disgusting object, they must spit, else they will be ill; and when you hear, or see, or experience any thing bad, the soul must spit it out, or it will become wicked itself.” Barefoot could not but laugh at the wonderful consolation of Brown Mariann.
Day after day passed in the old manner, and soon the wedding was forgotten, the dance, and all that happened there, by every one except Barefoot, who felt perpetual anticipation, which she could not conquer. It was well that she confided all her thoughts to Mariann. “I think I must have sinned in being so excessively happy that day,” she once said.
“Sinned! against whom?”