"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." So, turning to her child she said, "Run out,
deary, and put up the horse."

"Ah!" said Gudbrand, "but you see I have not the horse after all, for
when I got a bit farther on the road, I traded it for a pig."

"Think of that, now!" said the wife. "You did just as I should have done
myself; a thousand thanks! Now I can have a bit of bacon in the house to
set before people when they come to see me, that I can. What do we want
with a horse? People would only say we had got so proud that we couldn't
walk to church. Go out, child, and put up the pig in the sty."

"But I have not the pig either," said Gudbrand, "for when I got a little
farther on, I traded it for a goat."

"Dear me!" cried the wife, "how well you manage everything! Now I think