Page:Tales from the Fjeld.djvu/252



NCE on a time there was a man who had a goody who was so cross-grained that there was no living with her. As for her husband, he could not get on with her at all, for whatever he wished she set her face right against it.

So it fell one Sunday in summer that the man and his wife went out into the field to see how the crop looked; and when they came to a field of rye on the other side of the river, the man said—

"Ay! now it is ripe. To-morrow we must set to work and reap it."

"Yes," said his wife, "to-morrow we can set to work and shear it."

"What do you say?" said the man; "shall we shear it? Mayn't we just as well reap it?"

"No," said the goody, "it shall be shorn."

"There is nothing so bad as a little knowledge," said the man, "but you must have lost the little wit you had. When did you ever hear of shearing a field?"

"I know little, and I care to know little, I dare say," said the goody, "but I know very well that this field shall be shorn and not reaped."

That was what she said, and there was no help for it; it must and should be shorn.