"There was a woman here yesterday," said their father.
"Yes."
"The woman from the place down below. Did you see her go?"
"Yes."
"Had she a goat with her?"
"No," said the boys. "A goat?"
"Didn't she have a goat with her when she left?"
"No. What goat?"
Isak wondered and wondered. In the evening when the animals came home, he counted the goats once over—there were sixteen. He counted them once more, counted them five times. There were sixteen. None missing.
Isak breathed again. But what did it all mean? Oline, miserable creature, couldn't she count as far as sixteen? He asked her angrily: "What's all this nonsense? there are sixteen goats."