"For cleaning the buckets."
"There's none that way," says he.
"You get on with your work," says she hoarsely, and all impatient. "What was I doing by the water? I wanted twigs for a broom. Have you had anything to eat, d'you hear?"
"Eat?" says he. "How d'you feel now?"
"Tis well enough."
"I doubt I'd better fetch the doctor up."
"You'd better try!" says she, getting up and looking about for dry clothes to put on. "As if you'd no better to do with your money!"
Axel goes back to his work, and 'tis but little he gets done, but makes a bit of noise with planing and hammering, so she can hear. At last he gets the window wedged in, and stops the frame all round with moss.
That evening Barbro seems not to care for her food, but goes about, all the same, busy with this and that—goes to the cowshed at milking-time, only stepping a thought more carefully over the door-sill. She went to bed in the hayshed as usual. Axel went in twice to look at her, and she was sleeping soundly. She had a good night.
Next morning she was almost as usual, only so hoarse she could hardly speak at all, and with a long stocking wound round her throat. They could not talk together. Days passed, and the matter was no longer new; other things cropped up, and it slipped aside. The new house ought by rights to have been left a while for the timber to work together and make it tight and sound, but there was no time for that now; they had to get it into use at once, and the new cowshed ready. When it was done, and they had moved in, they took up the potatoes, and after that there was the corn to get in. Life was the same as ever.