Heaven help you, I wouldn't stand in your
shoes for anything."
"Well," said Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside, "I think things might have gone
much worse with me; but now, whether I have done wrong or not, I have so
kind a good wife she never has a word to say against anything that I
do."
"Oh!" answered his neighbor, "I hear what you say, but I don't believe
it for all that."
"And so you doubt it?" asked Gudbrand-on-the-Hillside.
"Yes," said the friend, "I have a hundred crowns, at the bottom of my
chest at home, I will give you if you can prove what you say."
So Gudbrand stayed there till evening, when it began to get dark, and
then they went together to his house, and the neighbor was to stand
outside the door and listen, while the man went in to his wife.
"Good evening!" said Gudbrand-on-the Hillside.
"Good evening!" said the good wife. "Oh! is that you? Now, I am happy."
Then the wife asked how things had gone with him in town.
"Oh, only so-so," answered Gudbrand; "not much to brag of. When I got to
town there was no one who would buy the cow, so you must know I traded
it away for a horse."
"For a horse," said his wife; "well that is good of you; thanks with all
my heart. We are so well to do that we may drive to church, just as well
as other people, and if we choose to keep a horse we have a right to get
one, I should think.
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