, are you, hussy? I know your tricks!
Wait till I get at you! I'll fix this rat you've got in here. He's caught,
all right!"

So long as Cutter had me by the throat, there was no chance for me at all.
I got hold of his thumb and bent it back, until he let go with a yell. In
a bound, I was on my feet, and easily sent him sprawling to the floor.
Then I made a dive for the open window, struck the wire screen, knocked it
out, and tumbled after it into the yard.

Suddenly I found myself running across the north end of Black Hawk in my
nightshirt, just as one sometimes finds one's self behaving in bad dreams.
When I got home I climbed in at the kitchen window. I was covered with
blood from my nose and lip, but I was too sick to do anything about it. I
found a shawl and an overcoat on the hatrack, lay down on the parlor sofa,
and in spite of my hurts, went to sleep.

Grandmother found me there in the morning. Her cry of fright awakened me.
Truly, I was a battered object. As she helped me to my room, I caught a
glimpse of myself in the mirror. My lip was cut and stood out like a
snout. My nose looked like a big blue plum, and one eye was swollen shut
and hideously discolored. Grandmother said we must have the doctor at
once, but I implored her, as I had never begged for anything before, not
to send for him. I could stand anything, I told her, so long as nobody saw
me or knew what had happened to me. I entreated her not to let
grandfather, even, come into my room. She seemed to understand, though I
was too faint and miserable to go into explanations. When she took off my
nightshirt, she found such bruises on my chest and shoulders that she
began to cry. She spent the whole morning bathing and poulticing me, and
rubbing me with arnica. I heard Antonia sobbing outside my door, but I
asked grandmother to send her away. I felt that I never wanted to see her
again. I hated her almost as much as I hated Cutter. She had let me in for
all this disgustingness. Grandmother kept saying how thankful we ought to
be that I had been there instead of Antonia. But I lay with my disfigured
face to the wall and felt no particular gratitude. My one concern was that
grandmother should keep every one away from me. If the story once got
abroad, I would never hear the last of it. I could well imagine what the
old men down at the drug-store would do with such a theme.

While grandmother was trying to make me comfortable, grandfather went to
the depot