"And where's the sense of growing corn on the place if we've nowhere to thresh it?"
"Ay, 'tis as I say, not a thing as could be but you have it all there in your head."
Inger is suddenly out of humour again. The talk between the other two somehow displeases her, and she breaks in:
"Cream custard indeed! And where's the cream to come from? Fish it up in the river, maybe?"
Oline hastens to make peace. "Inger, Lord bless you, child, don't speak of such a thing. Not a word of cream nor custard either—an old creature like me that does but idle about from house to neighbour…!"
Isak sits for a while, then up, and saying suddenly: "Here am I doing nothing middle of the day, and stones to fetch and carry for that wall of mine!"
"Ay, a wall like that'll need a mighty lot of stone, to be sure."
"Stone?" says Isak. "Tis like as if there'd never be enough."
When Isak is gone, the two womenfolk get on nicely together for a while; they sit for hours talking of this and that. In the evening, Oline must go out and see how their live stock has grown: cows, a bull, two calves, and a swarm of sheep and goats. "I don't know where it'll ever end," says Oline, with her eyes turned heavenwards.
And Oline stays the night.