Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/233

Rh his hands on his breast, and shut his eyes; and so she stretched his limbs, and laid him out, and put him into a coffin; but that he might not be smothered while he lay there, she had some holes made in the sides, so that he could breathe and peep out.

The other goody, she took a pair of carding combs and began to card wool; but she had no wool on them. In came the man, and saw this tomfoolery.

"There's no use," he said, "in a wheel without wool; but carding combs without wool is work for a fool."

"Without wool!" said the goody; "I have wool, only you can't see it; it's of the fine sort." So when she had carded it all, she took her wheel and fell a-spinning.

"Nay! nay! this is all labour lost!" said the man. "There you sit, wearing out your wheel, as it spins and hums, and all the while you've nothing on it."

"Nothing on it!" said the goody; "the thread is so fine, it takes better eyes than yours to see it, that's all."

So, when her spinning was over, she set up her loom, and put the woof in, and threw the shuttle, and wove cloth. Then she took it out of the loom and pressed it and cut it out, and sewed a new suit of clothes for her husband out of it, and when it was ready, she hung the suit up in the linen closet. As for the man, he could see neither cloth nor clothes; but as he had once for all got it into his head that it was too fine for him to see, he went on saying, "Aye, aye! I understand it all; it is so fine because it is so fine."

Well, in a day or two his goody said to him—

"To-day you must go to a funeral. Farmer