The things we do!

No. That's the way when you've money enough and beyond."
Old Gunhild comes out from the house, and seeing us standing there by the
chopping-block wasting time in idle talk, she tells Grindhusen he'd better
start on the painting.
"So you've turned painter now?" said I.
Grindhusen made no answer, and I saw I had said a thing that should not
have been said in others' hearing.


III

Grindhusen works away a couple of hours with his putty and paint, and soon
one side of the little house, the north side, facing the sea, is done all
gaily in red. At the mid-day rest, I go out and join him, with something
to drink, and we lie on the ground awhile, chatting and smoking.
"Painter? Not much of a one, and that's the truth," says he. "But if any
one comes along and asks if I can paint a bit of a wall, why, of course I
can. First-rate _Brandevin_ this you've got."
His wife and two children lived some four miles off, and he went home to
them every Saturday. There were two daughters besides, both grown up, and
one of them married.


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