"Ay, you wait. You'll see what Oline can do."

And so they keep on. Oline does not curse, and hardly raises her
voice; there is something almost gentle in her cold cruelty, but she
is bitterly dangerous. "Where's that bundle? I left it in the woods.
But you shall have it back--I'll not own your wool."

"Ho, you think I've stolen it, maybe."

"Ah, you know best what you've done."

So back and forth again about the wool. Inger offers to show the very
sheep it was cut from. Oline asks quietly, smoothly: "Ay, but who
knows where you got the first sheep to start with?"

Inger names the place and people where her first sheep were out to
keep with their lambs. "And you mind and care and look to what you're
saying," says she threateningly. "Guard your mouth, or you'll be
sorry."

"Ha ha ha!" laughs Oline softly. Oline is never at a loss, never to be
silenced. "My mouth, eh? And what of your own, my dear?" She points to
Inger's hare-lip, calling her a ghastly sight for God and man.

Inger answers furiously, and Oline being fat, she calls her a lump of
blubber--"a lump of dog's blubber like you. You sent me a hare--I'll
pay you for that."

"Hare again?" says Oline. "If I'd no more guilt in anything than I
have about that hare. What was it like?"