The things we do!

"And what is the price of mackerel today?" she asks.
"The same as yesterday."
"Then you can keep it, for all I care."
And Gunhild goes back home.
But the fishermen know that Gunhild is not one of those that only pretend
to go away; she has gone off like that before now, up to her cottage,
without once looking back. So, "Hey" they call to her, and say they'll
make it seven to the half-dozen today, seeing she is an old customer.
And Gunhild buys her fish.
Washing hangs on the lines to dry; red petticoats and blue shirts, and
under-things of preposterous thickness, all spun and woven on the island
by the old women still left alive. But there is washing, too, of another
sort: those fine chemises without sleeves, the very thing to make a body
blue with cold, and mauve woollen undervests that pull out to no more than
the thickness of a string. And how did these abominations get there? Why,
'tis the daughters, to be sure, the young girls of the present day, who've
been in service in the towns, and earned such finery that way.


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