"H'm," says he at last, getting up. "This won't do. Can't sit here
idling today. Work to be done."

"Seems like you're building," says Inger. "What?"

And he answered condescendingly, this great man who went about
building with timber all by himself, he answered: "Why, you can see as
much, I take it."

"Yes.... Yes, of course."

"Building--why, there's no help for it as I can see.. Here's you come
bringing a whole cow to the farm--that means a cowshed, I suppose?"

Poor Inger, not so eternally wise as he, as Isak, that lord of
creation. And this was before she learned to know him, and reckon with
his way of putting things. Says Inger:

"Why, it's never a cowshed you're building, surely?"

"Ho," says he.

"But you don't mean it? I--I thought you'd be building a house first."

"Think so?" says Isak, putting up a face as if he'd never in life have
thought of that himself.

"Why yes. And put the beasts in the hut."