Still, after Miss Grundy's forehead was duly bathed in cold water, and bound up in a blue cotton handkerchief (the lady's favorite color), she again ventured to say, "Miss Grundy, if you will only let me wash Alice in my room, I'll promise she shan't disturb you again." After a great deal of scolding and fretting about whims stuck-up notions, and paupers trying to be somebody, Miss Grundy, who really did not care a copper where Alice was washed, consented, and Mary ran joyfully up stairs with the bucket of clear, cold water, which was so soothing in its effects upon the feeble child, that in a short time she fell into a deep slumber.

Mary gently laid her down, and then smoothing back the few silken curls which grew around her forehead, and kissing her white cheek, she returned to the kitchen, determined to please Miss Grundy that day, if possible.
But Miss Grundy was in the worst of humors, and the moment Mary appeared she called out, "Go straight back, and fetch that young one down here.

Nobody's a goin' to have you racin' up stairs every ten minutes to see whether or no she sleeps with her eyes open or shet.
She can stay here as well as not, and if she begins to stir, Patsy can jog the cradle." Mary cast a fearful glance at Patsy, who nodded and smiled as if in approbation of Miss Grundy's command.

She dared not disobey, so Alice and her cradle were transferred to the kitchen, which was all day long kept at nearly boiling heat from the stove room adjoining.

Twice Mary attempted to shut the door between, but Miss Grundy bade her open it so she could "keep an eye on all that was going on." The new sights and faces round her, and more than all, Patsy's strange appearance, frightened Alice, who set up such loud screams that Miss Grundy shook her lustily, and then cuffed Patsy, who cried because the baby did, and pulling Mary's hair because she "most knew she felt gritty," she went back to the cheese-tub, muttering something about "Cain's being raised the hull time." At last, wholly exhausted and overcome with the heat Alice ceased screaming, and with her eyes partly closed, she lay panting for breath, while Mary, half out of her senses tipped over the dishwater, broke the yellow pitcher, and spilled a pan of morning's milk.
"If there's a stick on the premises, I'll use it, or my name isn't Grundy," said the enraged woman, at the same time starting for a clump of alders which grew near the brook.
At this stage of affairs, Sal Furbush came dancing in curtseying, making faces, and asking Mary if she thought "the temperature of the kitchen conducive to health." Mary instinctively drew nearer to her, as to a friend, and grasping her dress, whispered, "Oh, Sally, Aunt Sally, don't let her whip me for nothing," at the same time pointing towards Miss Grundy, who was returning with an alder switch, stripping off its leaves as she came.
"Whip you?
I guess she won't," said Sal, and planting herself in the doorway as Miss Grundy came up, she asked, "Come you with hostile intentions ?" "Out of my way," said Miss Grundy.