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you are smarter than I, and I would not question what you say but to understand something I do not understand."
"If we begin discussing all the things that you do not understand tonight, Fingal, we'll be sitting here talking until doomsday comes and goes."
Merrybell smiled, and Fingal smiled back at her because her smiles made him very happy. But there was a discontent in him that made him speak. "There are many with money that have no children, and there are some that are poorer than we whose hovels are crowded with the noise of children. But if you say that it is gold we must have before we raise the children, then I will raise the gold. How much gold is enough, so you think?"

Merrybell was getting sleepy, and this conversation was taking a winding path that made her dizzy. Sometimes it was easier to give Fingal a foolish answer, since he did not question her answers. "Fingal, my love, you will need gold enough to fill a bucket that has no bottom to it. And when you have enough gold, then you must find rubies enough to put them end on end on a circle about the trunk of the greatest tree in the world. And finally, you must get from far away lands pepper enough to spice all the potatoes that you grow in a year." Merrybell watched Fingal's face set harder and harder at each requirement she placed on him. She felt bad for him, but she would raise no children in this terrible penury, so she made to dash his dream completely. "And this is wealth enough for us. Do these three things and I will bear you sons and daughters enough to people a village entire!"
Fingal put his pipe back between his lips and retreated into silent thought. Merrybell was quite sad that she had disappointed him so, but she was firm. One must be firm with a fool.
When she rose from her knitting to go in to bed, Fingal looked up suddenly as if just wakened from a sleep. "Merrybell, my lover, where does one get gold and rubies and pepper?"
Merrybell laughed and Fingal was happy that she smiled again.
"I don't know, Fingal. But I have heard that gold doesn't grow on trees, that rubies are not the eyes of God, and that pepper makes a person sneeze. Aside from that, I know nothing about the getting of wealth beyond what I have gotten. And for all my troubles, I have gotten nothing but a fool."
Fingal nodded in good-natured agreement. "That's surely right, Merrybell, my lover. But you're better than most at getting a fool, for you've chosen and gotten the greatest fool of all, if my da' was right!"

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