Here's a man come for those tools now. So you only borrowed them; that's
all you're good for. I wouldn't be you for anything."
"Don't be a fool," said Grindhusen.
He was offended now, but I got him round again, as I had done so many
times before, by pretending I had only spoken in jest.
"What are we to do now?" he asked.
"You'll manage it all right," said I.
"Manage it--will I?"
"Yes, or I am much mistaken."
And Grindhusen was pacified once more.
But at the midday rest, when I was cutting his hair, I put him out of
temper once again by suggesting he should wash his head.
"A man of your age ought to know better than to talk such stuff," he said.
And Heaven knows but he may have been right. His red thatch of hair was
thick as ever, for all he'd grandchildren of his own....
Now what was coming to that barn of ours? Were spirits about? Who had been
in there one day suddenly and cleaned the place and made all comfortable
and neat? Grindhusen and I had each our own bedplace; I had bought a
couple of rugs, but he turned in every night fully dressed, with all he
stood up in, and curled himself up in the hay all anyhow.
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