* * * * *
They are both master-carpenters, and seem to be very good friends.
Jeanne and I lie in the boat and watch them, and stimulate them with
beer from time to time. But it does not seem to have much effect. One
has a wife and twelve children who are starving. When they have starved
for a while, they take to begging. The man sings like a lark. He has
spent two years in America, but he assures me it is "all tommy-rot" the
way they work like steam-engines there. Consequently he soon returned to
his native land.
"Denmark," he says, "is such a nice little country, and all this water
and the forests make it so pretty...."
Jeanne and I laugh at all this and amuse ourselves royally.
The day before yesterday neither of the men appeared. A child had died
on the island, and one of them, who is also a coffin-maker, had to
supply a coffin. This seemed a reasonable excuse. But when I inquired
whether the coffin was finished, he replied:
"I bought one ready-made in the town .
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