She could feel, so to speak, the distant approaching tramp of that pain in her side under whose threat she had lived all her life.

But there were seventy-five beans yet.
The note of her hoe, a high note not quite true pitched, clamoured monotonously upon her brain.

Three blisters and a half were persecuting her hands.
"Let them blist," she said defiantly.

"This row of beans was given me to hoe, and Death itself shall not take it from me." She could almost imagine she saw Death, waiting for her tactfully beyond the last bean.

She had no sense of proportion.