When she started to get up, all her limbs felt numb; and clasping her hands with difficulty, she moaned:
"For Heaven's sake let me not be ill now! I have no time for it—I mustn't be ill now"—as if in anger at her bodily weakness.
Determined to overcome it by force, she got up; but how she started back when she looked at herself in the glass! Her whole face was swollen! "That's your punishment," she said, half-aloud, "for running about so last night, and wanting to call upon strangers, even bad people, to help you!" She beat her disfigured face as if to chastise herself, and then tied a cloth around it tightly and went about her work.
When the mistress saw her, she wanted to put her to bed again at once. Rose, on the other hand, scolded, and declared that it was a bit of spite on Barefoot's part, this being ill just now—she had done it out of meanness, knowing that she would be wanted. Barefoot made no reply.
When she was out in the cow-shed, putting clover into the mangers, she heard a clear voice say:
"Good morning! At work so early?"
It was his voice.
"Not very hard," replied Barefoot; and she ground her teeth with vexation, more on account of the tormenting demon who had disfigured her face, so that it was impossible that he should recognize her, than anything else.
Should she make herself known now?—it was better to wait and see.
While she was milking, John asked her all sorts of questions; first he inquired about the quantity of milk the cows yielded, and whether any of it was sold, and how; then he wanted to know who made the butter, and if anybody in the house kept an account of it.